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.