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She lifted a hand to his chest and walked her fingers downwards, slowly, her eyes latched to his. “You know, I’ve been at an all girls’ boarding school my whole life.”
He arched a brow, his face a mask of disinterest. “I am aware of this fact.”
“It hasn’t left a whole lot of time for… exploring.”
“I’m glad to hear it. School is for your education, though I have to say, I’m not sure your grades reflect the effort you’re implying you gave to your school work.”
Her eyes narrowed and a fleck of something like determination filled out her face. She was beautiful. Far more mature than she looked, with a wisdom that came from grief, perhaps, adding to her charms. “Grades aren’t everything,” she shrugged carelessly. “Tonight, I’m thinking about other things I want to learn.”
He froze, his eyes locked to hers. “Are you trying to flirt with me, Claudia?”
She blinked her lashes, smiling slowly and moving closer. “I think I must be.” She stood on tiptoes and still her lips only reached the base of his throat, so she whispered there. “I’m a virgin. And I don’t want to be.”
He jerked his head downwards, fury in his features and she’d kissed him before he could tell her not to. She’d kissed him with all the clumsy ineptitude of a girl who’d never been kissed before.
And then he ended it, pushing her aside, stepping backwards.
“You’re out of your Goddamned mind. You are a child. And you are my ward! You actually think I’d want to sleep with you? I’m fifteen years older than you are. I date women. My lovers are experienced, mature grown-ups, not spoiled little kids high on their first binge of alcohol. Get your bag. I’m taking you home.”
He’d slept in her spare room, to make sure she was okay, so when she’d woken the next morning it wasn’t just with an unimaginable hangover, it was with the consequences of her behavior staring her straight in the face. He’d yelled at her – in a subdued, restrained way, but his anger had been a palpable force. So too his disappointment.
Claudia had given as good as she’d got, laughing off his criticism as though it didn’t matter, laughing at his prudishness and old-fashioned approach to the world. And when he’d left, she’d cried.
Their relationship, always strained, became even more distant from then onwards. They’d observed the bare minimum interactions as required by his guardianship. A brief catch-up on her birthday, when he’d given her a small gift – gifts she stupidly kept all together, on display in her lounge room, though she couldn’t have said why. He called once or twice a year.
Nothing more.
And that suited her fine.
Claudia was happy in her life. She was happy in a life that had nothing to do with her father or her failings. She didn’t want to be constantly reminded of what a disappointment she would have been to him.
And however much she knew that she would have been a disappointment to Christopher La Roche, hearing that voiced by Stavros cut her deeply. It spread an ache through her gut and filled her with an unimaginable sense of … failure. Of abject failure.
“There you are.” His voice came to her from close by. She stiffened and turned slowly, bracing herself to see him.
But she could never brace herself sufficiently. Not for the reality of Stavros. He strode across the grass, leaving darker footprints in the frost-tipped blades, his jeans pale blue, his pullover black and his coat grey. His hair was thick and tousled and her eyes lifted to it on autopilot, observing the way it spiked as though he’d been dragging his fingers through it. He held something dark in his hands; another coat, she surmised, once he was close enough.
“Were you looking for me?” She asked, turning her attention back to the river. She didn’t have the strength to look at him. The memories of that night were too warm in her mind. The way his body had felt. The way she’d wanted him. The way he’d rejected her.
“That’s why I said, ‘there you are’,” he drawled mockingly.
Claudia rolled her eyes. “Did you come just to belittle me?”
“Belittle you?” He responded, crouching down beside her, his powerful haunches in her peripheral vision, all distracting and tempting.
“Yeah.”
“No, Claudia. I came to tell you I am going into Bath. Would you like to join me?”
“To join you?” Her head whipped around to his. It was a mistake. They were only inches apart, and her eyes dropped to his mouth with confusion, then lifted to meet his. He was watching her, so undoubtedly he saw the way her breath was held and her cheeks flushed pink.
“Nai.” He lifted a hand up caught a thick clump of hair between his finger and thumb. “I like your hair long.”
Alarm bells were bleeting in Claudia’s mind. But she didn’t pull away, out of his touch. No. She closed her eyes and inhaled, a shaky breath of heat and confusion.
It was only a moment in time, and then he dropped his hand, and spoke with his usual crisp authority. “Well?” He stood. “I don’t have all day for you to make up your mind.”
Claudia blinked up at him. The bleak sky behind him backlit his body, so that he looked larger than life and so very dark and sexy.
