She was, if not happy, at least comfortable and rewarded while she nursed a rejected heart from Aleksy’s virtually wordless goodbye. He’d driven her into St. Petersburg himself and put her on a private jet back to London, where she’d been met by that dead fish, Lazlo.
She shouldn’t be so hard on the man. Lazlo was only doing his job, being attentive to the point of smothering her, ensuring that her boxes had been delivered to the flat in one of the most exclusive buildings in London. Aleksy’s? She hadn’t had the nerve to ask. She hadn’t lowered herself to take any of the three jobs he’d secured for her either. As for the credit cards that bore her name but wouldn’t send their bills to her, she’d cut them up the minute Lazlo left.
Clair knew it was pigheaded, but she hadn’t stayed one night in London. She’d put her things back in storage at her own expense and caught the train here. A clean break, she had decided, smirking a little over using the expression. Look at her, proficient in the vernacular of modern-day relationships after her first one.
Sighing, she flipped the page on her diary to check the time on tomorrow’s appointment with an art therapist before she closed the book. This was the part of the day she found hardest—going back to a house that felt like a home and having only a cat for company. Perhaps she’d invite one of the staff and their family to eat with her. She did that now. Rather than forcing herself to tough out the lonely times, she was making real friendships and finding it a confidence booster. It turned out people liked her when she opened up and let them get to know her. She wasn’t an awkward orphan any longer. She was an independent young woman like any other.
Fetching her jacket off the hook in the corner, she shrugged it on, flipping her hair out from under the collar with a vague thought to trim it soon. Outside, she noted a stylish car in the drive. Her heart skipped a beat, betraying how many fantasies she still harbored about a certain man, but it was probably just the school trustee who’d promised to pick up the scholarship information Clair had left for her.
Hearing a footstep and a creak of a floorboard behind her, Clair said, “Is that you, Geri? I was just about to hunt you down and ask if you’d like to come for din—” She turned to see a tall shadow filling the doorway. Déjà vu struck instantly.
She couldn’t move as she took in tall, dark, scarred, gorgeous Aleksy Dmitriev invading her life again.
“Who is Geri? Is he your colleague?” That voice. His rough-smooth accent and deep timbre vibrated through her, making her feel restless and anxious to take flight.
Clair surreptitiously braced a hand on the windowsill behind her. “Geraldine is one of the house parents. What are you doing here?”
“You dropped off the face of the earth, Clair.” He stepped into the tiny room and she took in all of him from his uncreased suit to his smoothly shaven jaw. He looked restored to his old self. Better. Like clay that was stronger for going through the fire. Clean, polished and strong. “What were you thinking, disappearing like that?”
Given that her mind was a clean whiteboard at the moment, completely blank of anything but shock, she took a moment to shake herself into a response.
“I wasn’t trying to disappear. I only wanted to discuss the foundation with the people it would most closely affect, so I came here to do it. Why?” She didn’t like how he put her on the defensive. He’d set her out of his life like bottles for the milkman to collect. She didn’t have to answer to him.
At least, she wanted to be that defiant and dismissive, but in reality, her heart was caving in on itself and her entire being was soaking up the effect of being near him again.
“If you didn’t want to stay in London, you should have said.” His arrogant decree was stated with a scowl of impatience.
“Said to who? Lazlo? Nothing against the man, but he’s not my warden and definitely not my bosom chum. He already knows more about my private life than I ever wanted him to. I wasn’t about to report my comings and goings to him.”
“To me.” Aleksy loosened his tie, then drove his fists into his pockets, his agitation making her think for a second—
Clair gave her head a little shake, refusing to read in to it. She had let herself get all tangled up in wanting things from him and was still trying to unravel him from her heart. She didn’t hate him for hurting her, but she didn’t want him to do it again.
Even though she suspected he was doing it again and all he’d had to do was step through a door.
“We’re no longer involved,” she said with as steady a voice as she could muster, reminding herself as much as him. With a flick of her wrist, she prompted him to close the door. When it had clicked firmly and he turned the blinding brilliance of his bronze eyes back on her, she countered it brutally. “You paid me out, in case you didn’t know.”