It was beautiful, anyway. Twinkling lights shimmered in the distance and an enormous Christmas tree peered above the others, an angel on its top making her smile and think of her own Christmas star.
“Stavros?” She turned around, her eyes pinning to him the moment he walked out of the bedroom. “I just realized something. Something important.”
“What is it?” He was instantly alert, concern obvious in his features.
“Your tree doesn’t have an angel! Or a star!”
“My tree?”
“The Christmas tree at Barnwell.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how I didn’t realise at the time,” she lied, remembering how completely distracted she’d become by the image of being taken over his knee and spanked across the bottom.
“I suppose you were just focusing on the heirloom ornaments,” he supplied, but the twinkle in his eye showed that he knew what had been responsible for derailing her thoughts.
“Yes, I must have been.” She grinned back. “We have to get a star.” She tilted her head to the side. “I have a beautiful one, at my place. We could stop there on the way out of town.”
His eyes narrowed and she felt his tension ratchet up a notch or ten. “No, let’s buy one for Barnwell,” he said with an air of casual unconcern. “The house should have a star.”
“Why doesn’t it?”
“It used to,” he said, grabbing his own coffee from the bench and coming to stand beside her. “But one year, Benedictus and Calista decided to play catch with it.”
Claudia winced at the image of such wanton distraction.
“It broke into a million little pieces of glass.”
“Oh, no! Please tell me it wasn’t like the decorations.”
He nodded. “Part of the same set.”
“Oh! Such a waste. How beautiful it would have been.”
“We’ll find another,” he said, with the promise of so many things beyond the star that her heart skidded in her chest.
“Not like that,” she shook her head.
She looked up at him and for a moment had the feeling he was going to say something. Something unconnected to the star, or to Christmas. There was a seriousness on his face that shifted everything inside of her.
But then, the bell rang, and he relaxed. “Room service.”
She watched him cross the room, his stride long and powerful, even in a setting such as this.
A bell hop stood on the other side, dressed in the hotel’s uniform. He wheeled the trolley through but Stavros dismissed him then, before he could set the table.
“I’ll do it.” Stavros nodded, waiting until they were alone again before placing items on the table top, including two newspapers.
It was a simple, normal gesture but it did something funny to Claudia’s breathing. A newspaper to her was like a loaded gun – especially with Stavros beside her. She could fool most people by flicking to the fashion magazine and looking at the pictures, but not Stavros.
He was too watchful.
Too attentive.
She took the seat opposite, sipping her coffee, ignoring the paper. Or trying to. It was a loaded bomb; she could hear its resolute ticking.
And yet, strangely, it didn’t explode. They ate together, and it was relaxed and easy, and Claudia truly thought she’d dodged a bullet. Until all the food had disappeared and Stavros cleared the plates to the benchtop and then kicked back in his seat, spreading the newspaper wide in front of h
im.
“I might have a shower,” Claudia said, over brightly, still ignoring the newspaper.