CHAPTER SEVEN
“IT’S A DISASTER, CLAUDIA. I know you said you can’t make it but we’re in such a pickle. Is there any chance you can make yourself available once more?”
Claudia paused, mid-way through stirring the pudding mix and gnawed on her lower lip. She tossed a guilty look at the clock above the old Aga stove.
Patrick had said they would leave that evening. If she hurried, she could beg a lift back to London. When push came to shove, she doubted Stavros was going to carry through with his threat to withhold her allowance. He wasn’t actually kidnapping her.
“I thought you’d organized Elizabeth Magento to take my place?”
“No one can take your place, dear. You’ve been introducing the event every year since it began.”
“That’s three years,” Claudia pointed out, biting back a smile.
“Yes, three years in which you’ve excelled.”
Claudia began to stir the pudding once more, breathing in the sweetly fragrant combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, brandy and dried fruit.
“Elizabeth will be excellent.”
“Elizabeth doesn’t have quite your reputation, dear,” Lady Margaret FitzHerbert said in a confidential tone. “She’s far too brash for most of our members.” She lowered her voice to a stage-whisper. “And I think she was drunk at this afternoon’s meeting.”
Claudia laughed. The irony of being holed up in Bath because her guardian believed her to be capable of just that kind of behaviour! “I’ll… see if I can make it.”
“You’ll let me know by tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“Yes, dear. The gala is Friday. I need time to pull a rabbit out of my hat if you forsake me.”
“Forsake you!” Claudia laughed in earnest now. “I’m hanging up. I’m sure I’ll be able to work something out.”
She wiped her hand on her apron and then reached for her phone, pressing the ‘disconnect’ button and shaking her head as she returned to stirring. The mixture came together into a gloopy mess and she carried the bowl over to the muslin cloth she’d moistened and floured earlier. It was lining a colander; she poured the batter into it, using the spoon to empty the last of the mixing bowl and then she lifted the spoon to her mouth and licked it, sighing as the unmistakable flavor of Christmas assailed her taste buds.
For someone who adored all of the rituals of Christmas so completely, she was incredibly disciplined about not undertaking any of the festive activities at any other time of year. To boil a pudding in June would be a sacrilege. No, December and December alone was the month for fruit mince pies, pudding, egg nog, gingerbread houses, mulled wine and sugarplums.
She wrapped the pudding, singing as she worked, tying the bakers’ twine around the ball and then lifting it to test it for strength. Satisfied, she placed it carefully into the pan of boiling, salted water and stepped back.
Perfect.
The kitchen was a little the worse for wear, and she would tidy it in due course.
But for the moment, more important things called Claudia’s attention. Like speaking to Stavros and explaining why it was imperative for her to return to London.
The gala event was one of the highlights of her year. She couldn’t miss it just because her guardian had decided to exercise his power over her.
She had common sense on her side; the conversation should not have been a difficult one. And yet she dreaded it for one reason alone: she hadn’t seen him since the unpleasant incident with the book, the day before. She’d stayed in her room all afternoon, only venturing into the kitchen to make a sandwich sometime around ten at night.
She checked the time on her watch and padded through the house, keeping an ear out for activity. It was strangely silent. She peeked into the conservatory, smiling as her eyes landed on the Christmas tree, then moved back into the house, down the hallway and up the stairs. Her heartbeat increased with each step she took. He was somewhere in the house, and the probability of that being his bedroom or study were both high.
The bedroom was closest. She moved quietly towards it, her pulse throbbing under her flesh as she went, tormenting her.
She lifted a hand and knocked at the door then stepped back, giving it a wide berth, as though he would emerge and burn her.
He didn’t. Half a minute passed with no sign of Stavros. She exhaled a sigh of relief and moved down the hallway. She needed to speak to him, but it was better for that conversation to take place outside of his bedroom.
Chicken, an inner voice taunted.
What exactly was Claudia waiting for?
Three years earlier, as a naïve eighteen-year-old, she’d begged him to make love to her. To take away her virginity and make her a woman. At twenty-one, she wanted the same thing. She wanted to know what all the fuss was about with sex.
But did she still want her guardian to be the one to teach her?
The kiss pushed itself to the forefront of her mind. His lips on hers. Their breath mingled. Their hearts pounding in unison. The taste of desire heavy between them.
She’d never known it could be like that. A kiss without thought or rational action. A kiss as a simple biological expression of need.
His office was at the end of the house. It had views in one direction of the river and in the other of the little forest behind the gate house. She paused on the threshold, caught her breath and then knocked three times, hoping the rapping on the door gave the appearance of confidence, which she was far from feeling.
“Nai?”
Show time.
Nerves simmered through her as she pushed the door inwards. Stavros was sitting at his desk, but he wasn’t working. His fingers were templed beneath his chin, and his attention had been caught by the bleak sky beyond.
He turned towards her as she came into the room, his eyes swirling with dark emotions when they met hers. “Claudia.” He gestured to the seat opposite. “Sit.”
“That’s okay,” She shook her head, a nervous gesture that conveyed far too much of her emotional state for Claudia’s liking. “This won’t take long.”
Silence beat around them, thumping in the space, dominating them. “Yes?” He prompted after a moment had passed.
“Patrick and Marta are going away tonight.”
His brows lifted thoughtfully. “I’m aware of this.”
“I want to go with them.”
“To spend Christmas with their grandchildren?” He said with a laugh. “Have you been invited?”
“Not with them.” Frustration fizzed at the edges of her words. “I thought they could take me part-way and I’ll catch an uber from there. Or I could catch an uber the whole way,” she murmured, “Come to think of it.”
“Claudia?”
“I mean, it’s not that far, and as you’ve pointed out, I am reckless when it comes to spending.”
“Claudia?”
She looked at him, all wide-eyed impatience.
“I have made myself clear on this score. You are staying with me through Christmas. At least.”
At least. The addendum trilled inside of her.
“I’ve learned my lesson,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’ll tone down my media stuff after Christmas. I promise.”
His laugh was dismissive. “You wouldn’t be saying what you think I want to hear, would you?”
She sighed. “You don’t get me.”
“Huh?” His eyes narrowed, and he stood, pressing his hands into the top of his desk, his gaze pinned to her.
“You don’t get me. You don’t understand my life.”
“No.” He nodded sagely. “I don’t. I don’t understand why you would seek the kind of notoriety you attract.”
“It’s not like that!” She snapped. “Yes, I’m in the papers a lot. Yeah, I go to a heap of high-profile events and parties and launches. But that’s kind of my job.”
“Your job?” He laughed scathingly. “And who is your employer? What is your salary? Do you get annual leave?”
She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “I raise the profile of worthwhile charities.” She shrugged. “I do try to use my notoriety, as you call it, to do good stuff.”
“And you’re happy to make yourself a laughing stock in the process.”
“I don’t agree with that,” she murmured.
“The press love you right now. But that will change. You are courting disaster with your current lifestyle. I have seen you in the papers for years. With different men, your relationships the stuff of tabloid fantasies. This love triangle has obsessed the nation. And you don’t care? You don’t care that people are judging you for stealing your best friend’s fiancé?”
Her cheeks flushed pink. “They’re not judging me…”
“You really don’t read the papers, do you? People are scathing about your lack of loyalty. Is he worth it, Claudia?”
Something inside of her shifted and then snapped. How frustrated she was by his wrong assumptions about her. How angry his determination not to listen to the truth of her life made her!
“You’re a fool if you believe everything you read in the tabloid press.”
“You’re saying it’s not true?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Nice try, princess, but pictures don’t lie.”
She swallowed past the rage and frustration. “And that really bothers you, doesn’t it?”
“You are my ward…”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it’s more than that.” She leaned forward over the desk, catching the faint, lingering smell of spices and alcohol, which reminded her of the pudding bubbling away downstairs. “I think you’re jealous.”
“Jealous?” He responded without humour, his expression impossible to read. “And what would I be jealous of?”
“The men I’m photographed with?” She murmured, her eyes boring into his, demanding answers. She was so far out on a limb and she hoped like hell she was right. That she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life.
“Yes, how right you are. The vain, self-interested men you let fumble all over you have been keeping me up at night.” His eyes narrowed and before she could recognize his intentions, he moved around the desk, so that his body towered over hers. “Do you ever wonder what it would be like?”
She stood slowly, her eyes locked to his even when she was terrified and knew it would be safer to look away. “What what would be like?”
“Sleeping with someone who knows what they’re doing.”
She glared at him, but her heart was tripping over itself, and emotions were rioting beneath the surface of her skin. She had come to see him to explain her need to escape. Nothing more. “I’m going back to London. I have a charity ball I’m obliged to attend.”
“You are laying low while this latest scandal blows over,” he corrected, moving infinitesimally closer.
“Damn it, Stavros!” She stomped her foot to the ground. “This is none of your business.”
“Wrong.”
She sucked in an angry breath.
“Did you know that every time you are in the papers, your father is included? Claudia La Roche, daughter of the late literary giant Christopher La Roche… This is how most articles about you begin.” He leaned closer, his face menacing as it hovered just above hers. “Your life is disgracing his legacy.”
She gasped, the horrible sentence burying deep into her soul and spreading plague and pain in its path. She lifted a hand and brought it down on his cheek hard, so that red covered his flesh. She was shivering with emotions and adrenaline and she took one second to survey the damage of her violent outburst and then spun around, running blindly for the door. She was powered by pain and aches and feelings so hurt they were destroyed beyond repair.
She reached for the door, pulling it inwards but Stavros was behind her, his powerful body dwarfing hers, his expression furious as he slammed the door shut and caged her against it.
“You do not get to run away from this conversation, princess, no matter how unpalatable you find it.”
Claudia spun slowly, pressing her back to the door, staring up at Stavros with eyes that showed all her torment and grief. “You don’t get to talk to me like this, no matter how unpalatable you find me.”
“Unpalatable?” His laugh was a harsh sound of self-derision. “That’s the exact opposite of how I feel about you. I might hate your lifestyle and hate your choices. I sure as hell hate the fact you have let every man with a title paw your beautiful body, but even that fact does not change what I want from you.”
“And what’s that?” She fired back, anger mixing with needs that were just as demanding, just as intense.
“I want to screw you.”
She drew in a ragged, aching breath, her pulse a raging torrent that would rival the storm-swept river outside.
She had to tell him the truth. This couldn’t go on. He wouldn’t want her if he knew that she was still innocent. He was playing with her because he thought they were equals. He thought her sexually experienced and as au fait in matters of flirtation and seduction as him.
“You’re wrong about me,” she said urgently, even as her hands lifted to his chest. Not to push him away but to hold him close. She tilted her head higher, her mouth inviting his. “You’re so wrong.”
“No, I’m not.” He crushed his lips down on hers with urgency. “But I want you anyway. I hate that I want you. I hate that I feel this.” His lips moved over hers, his tongue warred with hers. “I think I even hate you, Claudia, for what you are doing to your father’s name.”
He pushed her back against the door harder, so that she felt the strength and rigidity of his body pressed to hers. “But God, I want you.”
She cried into his mouth, a sob that was wrenched from her body. This was so wrong. On every level. But it was a tsunami that was dragging her out to sea, taking her deep underwater, removing the possibility for breath and survival.
“I’m not what you think, Stavros,” she kissed the words into him, as his hands found her rear and lifted her, wrapping her legs around him.
“Don’t lie to me.” He pulled his head away, just enough for his dark eyes, glistening like chips of black metal, to show their condemnation and swirling desire. “Right now, I don’t care who you’ve been with. Right now, you’re mine.”
She stared up at him, completely stricken. Because it was true. It was an indisputable fact. She always had been.
“Say it,” his hands lifted up higher, finding the strings of her apron and untying it, so that he could lift it over her head and toss it across the room. “Say it.”
“Say what?”
She was wearing a simple black sweater. His fingers sought the hem and pushed it up her body. She wore nothing beneath it, so that when he lifted it over her head, she was naked from the waist up. Her long hair fell over her breasts.
He sucked in a harsh, ragged breath, his eyes almost accusing when they landed to hers.
“Say it or this stops.”
Claudia nodded, and darted a tongue out, licking her lower lip. “Say what?”
“Say you are mine.”
She groaned and nodded, and felt the angry throb of tears mixing with lust low in her abdomen.
“I am.”
His eyes showing triumph in their flaming black centres and then his head dipped forward, swiftly, his mouth moved over one of her nipples, sucking its erect peach tip into his mouth, rolling it with his tongue and assaulting her with sensations she had never before experienced.
No man had ever touched her like this. No man had ever kissed her like this.
She made a keening noise of surprise and need, and tilted her head back, but it bumped against the door. She didn’t care.
Her legs were wrapped around his waist and he rolled his hips, driving his erection against her, so that she felt the strength of his need through their clothes.
Something like flame was moving through her, bringing with it the blinding brightness of fireworks detonating at close range. They were popping on the periphery of her vision. She was a being of lava and heat and she feared her whole body was changing into something else. Like a phoenix, she was rising from the ashes of the little girl she’d once been.
“The other one,” she cried out, as something dangerous slithered through her, making her legs shake and her breath rushed.
He laughed, but transferred his mouth, punishing this nipple now, while his fingers lifted to her other breast and he palmed it in place of his mouth, feeling its weight in his hand, his fingertips massaging the peach aureole of her nipple.
“Stavros,” she cried out, terrified by what she was feeling, but addicted to it at the same time.
Pleasure burst around her, an orgasm – her first. She tilted her head back, banging it against the door, crying out in waves as sensations lifted her up, carrying her away into the shiny, shiny sky.
“So responsive,” he murmured with an approval that made her toes curl. “Just like I’ve dreamed.”
It was a tiny admission but one that meant everything to Claudia. He’d dreamed of her, as she had of him.
“Please,” she whispered, pleasure still holding her high above the earth. She didn’t know what she was asking for. Only that she was incandescent with the newness of what she was feeling and that he was the only answer to the question that lay in her mind. “Stavros.”
He groaned, moving away from the door and carrying her to his desk. She was wearing an ankle length skirt, long and floaty, and when he propped her arse on the edge of the desk he pushed it up around her hips, his fingers demanding as they sought flesh. He found the lace of her underwear and pulled at it; Claudia wriggled her bottom up so that he could slide them off her more easily.
Knowing that she was exposed to him was a heady, intoxicating rush of pleasure. His fingers found the apex of curls at the top of her legs and brushed over them. She cried out at the intimacy of his touch, at the promise of what was to come.
“Stavros,” she whispered, her eyes meeting his. She couldn’t do this unless he knew the truth. Could she?
But would he still want her if he knew she was a virgin?
Or would his code of honour reassert itself? Would he walk away from this?
Knowing that there was every chance in the world he would regret what was about to happen, she reached for his face, splaying her fingers wide over his cheeks. “I want this,” she said earnestly, her eyes locked to his.
“No kidding.” It was a laugh. A dismissive, gruff retort to what he saw as an unnecessarily obvious statement.
His fingers moved down his body, finding the button to his jeans. He pushed them down, low on his hips, and then drew his underwear with them, moving quickly, urgently, desperately.
Then his hands were on her waist, pulling her towards him.
It all happened so quickly.
Claudia had barely a moment to realise that this was the moment, that there was no more foreplay, that this was happening, and then he thrust deep inside of her, so hard and fast, removing the invisible barrier of her innocence with that single motion, so that blinding pain stung her body, making her cry out – and not in a good way.
Stavros swore, jerking his head back, his eyes locked to hers and now he was the one who was drowning. He was the one who couldn’t cope.
The pain was over. It was just a second of discomfort and adjustment, and then the feelings of desire were back, warming her up from the inside, so that she smiled at him. “I want this.”
He stared at her, emotions she couldn’t comprehend all over his face. But he was pulling away from her, and she couldn’t let that happen. She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him close and she moved instinctively, rocking her hips back and forth, watching as colour spread along his cheeks and he compressed his lips until they were a white gash in his face.
His fingers pressed into her hips and she feared the worst, that he was going to bring this to an end. But he held her still, his breathing ragged, his eyes burning her with their intensity. And then, he began to move, gently, slowly, watching every single flicker of emotion that passed over her face, watching as she climbed higher and higher into the universe, pleasure spreading through her.
He moved. He controlled their movements. He controlled everything.
Claudia arched her back, staring up at the ceiling as divine, complete satisfaction burst through her. She was incandescent. She cried out his name, she cried out words that were impossible to understand.
She was lost. She was completely enslaved to the sensations he had stirred.
She flicked her head forward, her eyes meeting his as the waves continued to roll her. He was watching her, his own breathing tortured, his face flushed.
He watched her, and as she slowly regained control of herself, he withdrew. A torturous, aching emptiness shocked Claudia.
She groaned at his desertion, and confusion was swift to follow. He turned away from her, pulling his pants into place and zipping them up. Only the rapid movement of his back gave any indication that he was affected by what they’d just done.
No. What she’d done.
Claudia had no personal experience but she wasn’t an idiot. She knew that Stavros hadn’t experienced the same rapturous relief that she had.
“Stavros?” She whispered, not even sure what she wanted to say. “You didn’t… um, finish.”
He spun around, and she realized that he was angry! No, he was furious! It pushed everything else from her mind.
“What the actual hell?” He demanded, storming back to her, his eyes scanning her face as though he barely recognized her. “Of course I didn’t ‘finish’, Claudia. I presumed you’re not on birth control?”
She gaped at him, shocked that such a simply consideration had completely eluded her. She shook her head, numb, not just with what they’d done but with his reaction to it.
“You think I’d run the risk of getting you pregnant?”
His anger was something she didn’t expect. She had no answer for it.
“You were a virgin?” He demanded, hands on his hips, his expression inscrutable. “What the hell kind of game are you playing?”
“Game?” She whispered, shaking her head. “It’s not a game.”
His eyes squeezed shut for a moment and then he pierced her once more with this startling gaze. “I thought you were experienced. My God, Claudia. How dare you?”
“How dare I?” She repeated, not quite able to grasp the source of his indignation. “I never lied to you.” Her teeth were juddering together. “In fact, I tried to tell you the truth.”
“Not enough. You didn’t try anywhere nearly hard enough.”
“You wouldn’t listen!”
“If you’d said the words, ‘I’m a virgin’, believe me, I would have listened.”
Claudia knew that, didn’t she? It was one of the main reasons she hadn’t said those exact words.
“I would never have slept with you if I’d known.” He spun away from her, and strode over to the windows. He stared out, his autocratic profile showing his dark emotions.
Claudia was bereft. Her heart, her stupid heart, was splintering into a billion pieces. His rejection, always awful, was more intense than any pain she’d ever known. Getting a grip was imperative. She had survived his rejection the first time and she would again now.
And all the more so if she could be brave and make him see that she was in control.
She pushed up to standing, wincing as muscles that had never before been tested gave little sharp cries of complaint. She straightened her skirt and looked around for her sweater. It was on the floor by the door. She scooped it up and pulled it on quickly, her back to him. But he was still looking out the window, so it made no difference anyway.
“Stavros?”
He didn’t respond.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, begrudgingly, he turned to face her. “You didn’t listen to me when I tried to tell you that you know nothing about who I am. Maybe now you get it.”
He swore, jerking his head back in shock. “You slept with me to prove a point?”
She hadn’t. She’d slept with him because she’d wanted to, because she’d wanted to fiercely and with all of herself. But she wouldn’t admit as much to him.
Her chin tilted defiantly and she shrugged. “I can think of worse ways to make a point.”
She wrenched the door open and moved through it before her shield of bravado could slip. She wouldn’t let him see how hurt she was by his swift rejection of what they’d just shared. But inside, she was breaking apart.
*
His world was falling apart.
He stared at his office, his desk in disarray, and shock iced through his veins. What the hell had just happened?
Sleeping with Claudia wasn’t the problem. He was no fool. The heat between them had been going to explode from the minute she begged him to take her to bed, three years earlier.
It was all kinds of wrong. Not just because she was his ward and the daughter of his friend. Not just because he had been entrusted with looking after her.
He was fifteen damned years older than her. At twenty-one she was barely older than a teenager. And he’d just taken her against his desk, taken her innocence, as though it meant nothing. And then he’d yelled at her.
He swore loudly in Greek, the word ricocheting around his office, slamming back against him with renewed anger.
He ran his hand over the back of his neck, rubbing the muscles there.
He hadn’t just yelled at her. He’d blamed her, and he’d shamed her. What an A-grade asshole move. Hell, he hadn’t even undressed her, or himself. He’d been so impatient to take her, and he’d been too rough. His eyes shut on a wave of guilt. If he’d known it to be her first time, he would have spent hours teasing her and tormenting her with sensual promise, until she was incandescent with pleasure. He would have relaxed her and eased her into what they were to share.
Instead, he’d treated her like his equal. Like any number of the women he’d been with. Suddenly, he hated, loathed, and despised that he had been her first. He’d slept with more women than he could remember. He’d had meaningless sex. He used to like meaningless sex.
But not with Claudia. And not for her first time.
Her first time! How the hell could she still have been a virgin? He slammed his eyes shut and the litany or paparazzi photos he’d seen over the years ran before his eyes.
Claudia stumbling out of nightclubs at two in the morning, arm in arm with one man. A week in the French Riviera with another. At the Oscars with a film star. Then drunk at the Vanity Fair after party, wearing a sheathe of a dress that left little to the imagination.
He groaned as he shook his head. None of it made any sense.
And strangely, somehow, it did. He’d believed the press. She was beautiful – stunning – glamorous, moved in the kind of social circle where morals were seen as an optional extra. And yet she wasn’t like that. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
The certainty that he’d just made one of the biggest mistakes of his life lodged in his chest, hard and sharp. He’d stuffed up, and he had no idea how to fix it. He only knew that he had to fix it, or he’d never forgive himself.