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Relief crashed through him; it was a sweet, heaven-sent balm. “She did?”
“I guess she just wanted you to go away.”
“I see.” He nodded, and then lifted her hand, apple still held in it, to his lips. He kissed each of her fingers, and then lowered it. “I think it’s only fair to give you fair warning then.”
“Fair warning?”
“Si.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t intend to go anywhere, Carrie.”
Her stomach rolled but she didn’t react. He was staring at her again, his eyes searching her face.
“Darling? Has Carrie offered you breakfast?” Alexandra’s voice, up-beat considering she’d just laid her husband to rest the day before, broke through the atmosphere of charged tension.
Carrie’s lips flicked with the disdain Gael felt. “I’m about to make an omelette,” Gael said, without taking his eyes off Carrie’s face.
“Sounds delicious.” While Carrie watched, Alexandra put an arm around Gael’s waist and pressed a kiss to his cheek. It effectively blocked Carrie out, but she lingered. It was like watching a train wreck. She felt powerless to stop it, but she couldn’t look away.
A kind of morbid fascination prompted her to move to the coffee machine and slowly pull a pod from its box.
They looked good together, she realised with a start. Alexandra was older, but she had a stunning, age-defying beauty to her. And Gael looked as he always did – strong, sexy, magnificent. She slipped the pod into the machine and hooked a mug beneath.
“How are you today?” Alexandra placed her free hand solicitously on his chest and Gael didn’t step backwards. At least, not immediately.
“I’m fine. And you, stepmother?” He asked with a quiet drawl.
Alexandra’s laugh was pained. “Don’t call me that, darling.”
Now, he stepped away, his dark eyes briefly lifting to Carrie. She looked impossibly frail, and that same protective instinct that had lodged inside of him six years earlier flared to life.
He’d created this situation.
He should have shaken free of Alexandra’s obvious interest long before this. He’d presumed, naively, that she’d given up on him as a prospect.
He should have known better. Women like Alexandra were nothing if not dogged. Carrie was waiting for her coffee to finish running, and he could tell that she was almost at breaking point.
Gael had to fix it. He had to fix everything. He was good at that – at fixing things. It was one of his gifts. But there was a big difference between buying a broken chain of hotels and turning it into a profitable enterprise, and soothing a lifetime of hurt and subtle cruelty.
“I’m going to take Carrie back to London after breakfast,” he said decidedly. That was a start. Getting her away from this cursed place, and the mother who seemed to hate her.
Alexandra looked from one to the other, her confusion evident in her pretty features. “She’ll be fine, Gael. Carrie’s a big girl. I’d really rather you stayed to help me go through your father’s paperwork.”
“That’s fine by me,” Carrie said firmly. She pulled her coffee cup out of the machine, and lifted her apple. Her blue eyes were pale in the morning light. “Excuse me, I’m going to go pack.”
“Carrie,” his tone was firm, and for the first time in their relationship, she stopped when he called her.
She turned, her expression one of bleak weariness.
Gael almost forgot Alexandra was there. He walked to Carrie, but didn’t touch her. It was his eyes that did it. His beautiful eyes, so loaded with care and compassion. “Why can’t you let me in?”
Her eyes flew to her mother; Alexandra looked as though she could be blown over by a light breeze. She was clearly shocked. “Am I missing something?”
Gael ignored her. “You are pushing me away because you’re scared.”
Carrie bit down on her lower lip. “I’m not doing this here. Not now.”
