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'But not, judging from your horror, of this quality. Do you know how many dollars' worth you just wasted in that sneeze?'
It was as if he had read her mind. She glared at him, but the look was wasted. He was showing interest in her robe where the wrapover section had slipped with her choking breaths, his grin fading at the sight of pale lavender lace. He looked up and found her watching him, and there was a breathless moment when neither could look away. Clare was suddenly achingly conscious of her body. Because she had a slight allergy to man-made fibres, she couldn't wear anything but wool, cotton or silk immediately next to her skin. As a result, her underwear and nightwear was all either extremely cheap and prosaic or, like the lavender silk nightgown, sinfully exotic and expensive. It was one of Miles's little gestures of appreciation that each time he came back from overseas he brought his valued Moonlight staff members a gift. For Clare it was invariably underwear, usually French, the kind she could never dream of affording herself. Over two years, she had built up quite a wardrobe, Miles turning a deaf ear to all blushes and protests.
'I… I think I should go and get dressed,' said Clare nervously, beginning to back away, feeling threatened by the curiosity she could see in the dark eyes. He wanted to see what the lace was attached to, and to her horror Clare could feel her breasts tingling against their fine silk covering.
'No!' The word jerked out, uncomfortably loud in the small room. 'No, don't run away.' He smiled soothingly at her, his voice warm and encouraging as he picked up her glass and handed it to her, resolutely keeping his eyes away from her intriguing neckline. 'Just a few drinks and a little conversation, Clare. Where's the harm in that, mmm? Sit down. Don't be so tense. Nothing terrible is going to happen.'
That was debatable, Clare thought as she numbly obeyed. Something terrible had already happened. She had wanted him to look at her…to touch her. She looked blindly down into her glass. It hurt, this wanting. It was wrong…
'Don't look so tragic, Clare. There's nothing wrong with a man looking at a woman, or vice versa. It doesn't have to lead to anything,' he said as he sat beside her, and the hint of amusement stung. Clare lifted her chin.
'It won't.'
'Of course it won't…if you don't want it to.' He smiled at her with a beguiling tenderness. It surprised her, this gentleness in a man who looked so harsh and masculine.
'Now…what were we talking about before we were…distracted? Ah, yes, my daughter. Dare I suggest that I think you might be good for her? That damned school she was at seems to have had no idea how to control her.'
'Is that what you want? For her to be controlled?' asked Clare, relaxing fractionally now that the conversation was focused on him.
'I put that badly. Not controlled—channelled. She has much energy but no sense of focus, no ambition… beyond this fixation that she wants to look after me.'
'What's so awful about that? You're her father, the only family she has. It's natural she should want to be with you.'
'Actually I'm not—her only family, that is. Nina's parents are still alive. They live in Paris and they'd be happy to have Tamara live with them and go to day school there, but she rejected that idea, too. It's not just being with me she wants, Clare; she wants to do things that a wife does. She wants to be a replacement for Nina, and I can't let her do that—to herself or to me.'
'Oh?' Clare was lost. Surely he didn't mean…she moistened her suddenly dry mouth with champagne. No, not David, his instincts were very healthy…
'Why are you looking at me like that? As if I am from under a stone?' She blushed, and his eyes narrowed to black slits. 'Clare? Surely you don't imagine…?' He swore. It was in Russian but she was positive it was a swear word. 'Clare!' For a moment she thought he was going to snatch back his champagne and storm out, then he threw back his dark shaggy head and began to laugh.
'For one who tries to be so controlled, you have a shockingly uncontrolled imagination,' he said, enjoying her discomfort.
Was that how she appeared to him? Controlled? Oh, thank goodness! thought Clare.
'I was not talking sexually, my prurient-minded madonna,' he reproved as he refilled her drained glass. 'I meant emotionally. It's not as if I require a replacement for Nina; that part of my life is now finished…' Did that mean he didn't intend to marry again? There certainly didn't seem to be room in his schedule for another wife. 'And certainly I don't want Tamara to be one of those people who sacrifice their own lives to the safety of living it vicariously through others, forming obsessive ties in the process.'
Clare stiffened. Was that a dig at her? She looked at him sharply, but he was staring out of the large picture window at the moonlit lake. All the rooms faced the lake, and on clear nights like tonight, with the moon full and heavy, a silver pathway opened across the still waters.
'Perhaps she doesn't see it as a sacrifice,' Clare pointed out gently. 'Perhaps she wants to do it out of love.'
'But that's what it would be. She would be Deverenko's daughter, not Tamara.'
'She's that already.'
'No, she's that still.' He looked up and caught her struggle to understand. He leaned forward, the dark fabric stretching across his broad thighs. 'Love and independence aren't incompatible, Clare. I want Tamara to discover that herself; I want her to finish her schooling, to have the experience of friendships and knowledge beyond the tight musical circle that encompasses me.'
'You can't force her into independence, not if you want to keep her love.'
He sighed. 'I know, but what can I do? We've tried tutors and companions. It worked while Nina was alive, because she made sure that Tamara respected them, but when I'm travelling and performing I don't have the time to give her the continuity of supervision that she received when we were a family unit. She ran rings around every woman I hired—and fired. So then we tried her grandparents—and now the school. Tamara has become an expert in lack of co-operation, in running away from situations she doesn't want to face. I fear for her, Clare, but I believe that if I give in to her manipulating I'll be creating a rod for both of our backs. Do you know she used to play the piano and violin? But since Nina died she has just refused to play any more. I won't say she had great talent, but she was a competent player—'
'Damned with faint praise,' murmured Clare.
His dark eyes were fierce. He tipped back his head and swallowed his champagne in one hard gulp, as if it were vodka. 'Damn you, I wasn't being condescending. I don't care whether she's a virtuoso or not. In fact, I was glad she didn't seem to care about a career in music-it's a hell of a struggle in the middle ranks—but music for pleasure…to play for pleasure, one's own pleasure… she knows how important that is to me. She wants to share in my life, yet she won't share this vital pleasure with me. I don't care if she never has another lesson—but to turn her back on it entirely, it wounds me.'
'Perhaps that's her intent.' Yes, to a man with music in his soul, it would be a powerful weapon to use against him.
'It probably is. That's also disturbing. I don't want her to gear her life to pleasing or displeasing me.'
'That's a father's fate, I'm
