Bridal Bargains by Michelle Reid Page B

soft curse, he moved away from her again, going back into the bathroom to return carrying a glass of water. Not even glancing her way, he strode across the room to pick up the pill bottle. Coming back, he handed her the glass of water then shook two small pills into his palm. In grim silence he offered them to her. And in tearful silence she took them and washed them down with the water.
    A tear trickled down her cheek. She went to wipe it away with the glass—but he got there before her, his long fingers gently splaying across her damp hair while he smoothed his thumb pad across her cheek.
    And the worst of it was, she wanted to lean right into those splayed fingers. She wanted to bury her face in his big hard chest and sob her wretched heart out!
    ‘I can’t even stand up!’ she confessed despairingly. ‘My hip’s gone all stiff—and my thigh and my ribs!’
    A moment later she was being lifted into his arms and it hurt like blazes but she didn’t care.
    ‘I am such a pathetic baby!’ she sobbed as he carried her across the room towards the bed.
    ‘You are hurt. You are shocked. You are exhausted,’ he responded sternly. ‘Which means you are allowed to be pathetic.’
    A joke! She laughed, and the tears stopped.
    Laying her carefully on the bed, he reached across her and flipped the other side of the king-size duvet over her. His face was still stern, but she found she liked looking at it now.
    ‘How old are you?’ she asked curiously.
    He paused as he was about to straighten. Looked into pool-deep blue eyes—and offered her a cold little grimace. ‘As old as the hills,’ he drawled—and stood back. ‘Now rest,’ he ordered. ‘And let the pain-killers do their job. We eat in …’ he took a quick glance at the paper-thin gold watch he had wrapped around his hair-peppered wrist ‘… two hours. Bythen Althea should be back with your things. So you may get up and join me for dinner downstairs, or you can eat up here. The choice is yours.’
    With that he turned and was gone. It was like having the fire go out suddenly, Claire decided with a shiver, then frowned, wondering why she was comparing him to a fire when he was more like a freezer most of the time …
    She went downstairs for dinner. Mainly because she didn’t want to be a bigger nuisance to these people than she was already being—and because she was desperate to see Melanie, who was being bathed and fed by Lefka while Althea unpacked Claire’s clothes then helped her to dress in a fresh pair of jeans and a simple black tee shirt that was loose enough and baggy enough to pull on and off without causing her too much trouble.
    Althea showed her into a large drawing room that was nicely decorated in champagne golds and soft greens. Another fire was burning in the grate and the soft sounds of classical music floated soothingly in the air.
    Andreas was there, dressed in a fresh pale blue shirt and a pair of steel-grey trousers that sat neatly on his lean waist. But what really surprised her was to find him holding Melanie comfortably at his shoulder.
    ‘You look better,’ he remarked, bringing her eyes up from the baby to find him running his gaze over her now shiny gold hair. It had dried on its own while she’d rested and really needed styling, but its own slight kink had saved it from looking a complete fly-away mess.
    ‘I feel it,’ she nodded, with a smile that brought his eyes into focus on hers. Whatever it was that was written in those dark depths, Claire suddenly found herself remembering that kiss earlier, and had to break the contact quickly before she embarrassed herself by blushing.
    ‘How has she been?’ she then asked anxiously, lookingback at Melanie who looked so tiny against the broad expanse of his chest.
    ‘Like an angel,’ he drawled. ‘So Lefka informs me. She is smitten,’ he confided—then said more softly, ‘And I cannot blame her.’
    He really meant it, too, Claire realised as she briefly flicked her eyes