“You were saying?” He prompted.
“I have a trillion ornaments,” she nodded, stepping down off the step ladder so she could study the tree. “But nothing old like this. I don’t know if my dad had any handed down to him. My mother didn’t.” She smiled up at Stavros, but it was a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I’ve got red ones, silver ones, gold ones, green ones. I choose a theme every year and decorate the house in that colour.” She turned back to the tree. “But I’ve never had any like this.”
Something in her words stirred sympathy inside of him. He pressed down on it. She might have been acting like a sweet little elf, but she was nothing of the sort. He expelled a soft sigh.
“How did your … friend take the news that you’re here?”
She frowned, not immediately knowing who he meant. “Artie?” She furrowed her brow. “He was fine. Just surprised. As I said, I have a busy few weeks coming up so I really do need to be back in London…”
“London will cope with your absence,” he drawled.
&nb
sp; She swallowed. Suddenly, his misunderstanding hurt. What he thought of her was something she didn’t like, and she longed to clear it up.
“Stavros,” she moved past him, reaching into the box and lifting out a dark green ornament that had cherry red swirls over its base. It reminded her, for some reason, of figure skaters. She moved to the tree and crouched down, pressing it to a lower branch. She turned back to Stavros and had the distinct impression he’d been looking at her bottom. It coloured her cheeks but she pushed on regardless. “My life is much calmer than you think.”
He made a laugh. “Do you read the newspaper articles, Claudia?”
“No,” she responded honestly. “I know they like to gossip about me and my friends. That’s part of the scene. But it doesn’t bother me.”
“Yeah, well, it sure as hell bothers me,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
“Because it would have bothered dad?” She said, reaching for another ornament, lifting out a black and silver one this time.
“Yeah.” It was a gruff admission.
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”
He waited for her to continue. “My dad didn’t particularly care what I was doing with my life, Stavros. If he was still here, I think he’d be writing and lecturing and forgetting I existed half the time.”
Stavros stood stock still, his eyes trained on Claudia as though looking away would kill them both. “You are wrong. He loved you.”
“Sure, I’m his daughter,” she said, shrugging her slender shoulders and pulling another bauble out. She climbed back up the ladder and pinned it to a spot that was otherwise empty. “He had to love me. But he didn’t care about me. He didn’t particularly want me in his life.” She smiled reassuringly at Stavros. “It’s fine. I accepted it a long time ago. Long before he got sick and died.”
A muscle jerked in Stavros’s cheek. “How can you possibly talk about him this way?”
“It’s the truth,” she said. “You told me last night that I’m like my mother.” Her heart skipped a beat. “I don’t know if I am or not. I don’t really remember that much about her. But I remember how lonely she was. I remember how much we both missed him. I remember dad was gone a lot of the time. And then she would go. I remember missing them both.” Claudia cleared her throat. “So don’t talk to me about what dad would expect of me, as though he has any say in what I do with my life.”
“You’re happy for him to bankroll your life.”
Her eyes narrowed and she felt the injustice of his accusation, and yet it was right. She lived off her father’s money. And she lived damned well. “Yeah. I guess I’m not perfect.”
“Far from it,” Stavros returned broodingly, moving away from her. “You were his only child. He made the decisions he felt were best for you…”
“Like boarding school when I was six years old? Weeks after losing my mother?”
Stavros hadn’t realized it had been so soon. “He must have felt you’d be happier there.”
“Maybe.” She moved back to the ornaments. “I wasn’t.”
Stavros filed this information away. “You went to boarding school weeks after losing your father.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “But it was my home by then.”
Something prickled down Stavros’s spine. He ignored it. Her disloyalty and lack of affection rankled. That must have explained the strange sense of unease that was filling him from the inside.
“If you’re trying to get me to buy the poor little orphan routine, it won’t work. I don’t care what disadvantage you feel your father gave you, I don’t believe it. He loved you. He wanted the best for you. And you repay him by acting like a spoiled, attention-seeking brat.”