Bridal Bargains

Recognising that voice, she sat up with a start, saw she was back in her bed and knew exactly how she’d got there. It had been no dream last night! Andreas had come into her room and found her asleep on the sofa! He’d woken her up when he’d gathered her into his arms to carry her back to bed, and she even remembered the raw humiliation in starting to cry all over again!

Oh, how could you, Claire? she chided herself furiously. How could you let him see how hurt you are?

And there was worse—much worse, she recalled, closing her eyes in the hopes of shutting it all out again. But it would not be shut out. And she saw herself clinging to him. Saw him lay her gently on the bed then come down to lie beside her. She felt the light brush of his lips on her cheek and the way his hands had stroked her, quietly soothing her back into oblivion before he must have got up and placed the covers over her.

I hate him, she thought angrily. I really, really hate him for catching me out like that!

Too angry to just sit there tormenting herself, she got up and dressed quickly, needing to soothe her savaged ego by spending some time with Melanie.

She could even make herself a drink there, since the nursery came with its own fully equipped kitchen, which would save her having to face Andreas across the breakfast table.

The idea lifted her spirits, and as her brain fed that inspired thought to her stomach she realised just how desperate she was for some food and a hot cup of tea.

Dressed comfortably in a sage-green tee shirt and a pair of slim-fitting yellow Capri pants, she stepped out of her room to be immediately struck by how quiet the rest of the house was.

Early though she knew it was, she had expected the house to be a hive of activity by now as the staff cleared up after last night’s party. But as she peered over the gallery rail at the huge hallway below she saw that the place had already been wiped clean of all evidence of partying.

The staff must have been working until the early hours, she realised, leaving them at liberty to have a well-earned lie-in this morning which probably meant that she was the only person up and around.

A prospect that suited her very well while she was still struggling to deal with what had happened last night, and she resolved to use their long day yesterday as an excuse for them to leave her to take care of Melanie today.

The nursery would give her somewhere to hide. Somewhere to lick her wounds and try to come to a decision as to what she was going to do. For the impulse to just pick up the baby and run before she dug herself even deeper into the mire her emotions were in was a gnawing ache that filled her brain.

If it hadn’t been for Andreas’s grandmother, she had a suspicion she would have done it already and stolen away in the dead of night like a thief running off with the family silver.

Also there was still Melanie to consider. Melanie who could gain so much from living this kind of luxury life—and so little from the life Claire could give her.

Not many pluses in favour of running, she heavily concluded, and she hadn’t even taken into consideration the dire threat of retribution Andreas had laid on her last night.

Inside the nursery all was quiet, the early morning sunlight diffused by the pretty apple-green curtains still drawn across the windows. Claire quietly closed the door behind her, and was about to walk over to the crib to check on the baby when a sound in the other corner of the room had her head twisting round, expecting to see Althea—only to freeze when she found herself looking at Andreas.

Dressed in what looked like a white cotton tracksuit, he was sitting in the comfortable rocking-chair in the corner, cradling a sleeping Melanie in his arms.

His eyes were closed, his dark head resting back against the chair’s cushioned back—though he wasn’t asleep. The way one long brown bare foot was rhythmically keeping the chair rocking while the other rested across its knee told her that.

He was just too lost within his own deep train of thought to have heard her arrival.

Not pleasant thoughts either, she noticed, looking at the grim tension circling his shadowy mouth. Then she had to suffer a vivid action replay of what that mouth had made her feel like last night and she unfroze with a jolt, her first instinct to turn and leave quickly before he realised she was there.

His eyes flicked open, catching her in the act of a cowardly retreat. The chair stopped rocking. They both froze this time. The fact that Andreas was as disconcerted to find her standing there as she was to find him was enough to hold them trapped as a new knowledge of each other raked through the silence in a whiplash so painful it seemed to strip Claire’s tangled emotions bare.

Neither spoke; neither seemed able to. Her heart was pounding, her throat thickening up on a stress overload that was seriously affecting her ability to breathe.

What he was feeling was difficult to define with a man so good at keeping his own counsel, but something stirred in the unfathomable black eyes.

Regret, she wondered, or even remorse? Whatever it was it managed to hurt a very raw and vulnerable part of her, and she would have continued her cowardly retreat if he hadn’t spoken.

Speaking softly so as not to awaken the baby, he said, ‘Kalimera …’ offering her the Greek morning greeting that she had grown very used to over the last few days.

Slowly she turned back to him. ‘Kal-Kalimera,’ she replied politely, not quite focusing on him.

‘You are up early. It is barely six o’clock,’ he remarked, trying, she knew, to sound perfectly normal but it was a strain and it showed in the slight husky quality of his voice.

She nodded, licked her dry lips and wished her heart would stop racing. ‘S-so are you,’ she managed, but that was all she could do.

‘I haven’t been to bed,’ he replied, glancing ruefully at the baby. ‘Melanie has had a disturbed night. Althea was exhausted so I sent her to bed around dawn and took over here.’

‘Oh!’ Instant concern for Melanie had her moving towards him on legs that were trembling with nervous tension. ‘Someone should have come for me!’ she protested as she peered worriedly at the baby.