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“Claudia?” She loved the way he said her name. He opted for the Italian pronunciation, so that her name was Cloud-eyah. It was musical.
“Yes,” She stood abruptly and almost backed into him. He stepped away.
“Here, then. You’re barely dressed.” He thrust the coat in her direction and strode off, his legs long as they took his across the grass, towards the car they’d arrived in only days earlier.
Claudia’s frown was one of bemusement. She pushed her arms into the jacket and wished she hadn’t when his fragrance surrounded her. It was his?
Of course it was. She hadn’t brought a jacket with her, and the trench coat had been the only women’s coat she could find in the boots room. A smile spread across her symmetrical face as she decided she’d buy herself a new coat in Bath. Perhaps two. If he thought she was a money-wasting heiress then she might as well prove him right.
“Claudia?” His voice barreled to her from across the grass.
She made a noise and began to move in his wake, not rushing, lest he think she was afraid of him.
Fear was indeed coursing through her veins, but it was fear of how she wanted him. Despite all that had happened, despite the fact she hated him for his heavy-handed treatment of her, despite the fact she loathed him for rejecting her at eighteen and treating her like a pariah ever since, despite the fact he belittled her lifestyle and hadn’t believed her when she’d tried to explain that her image wasn’t the truth of who she was.
Yes, she wanted him.
She
wanted him to be her first lover as much as ever, and suddenly, she was very tempted to throw caution to the wind. If he thought her to be someone who hooked up with any man who caught her fancy, why not do exactly that? Her smile broadened to a grin as she reached the car.
“What are you smiling about?” He prompted darkly, his manner thick with disapproval.
“Oh, just thinking about something.”
He pulled his door open and lifted into the driver’s seat at the same time she took the passenger position. “I’m surprised,” he grumbled. “Thinking doesn’t really seem like your forte.”
Claudia sucked in an angry breath. She was mad to want him despite how he treated her. Mad. “Just like kindness doesn’t seem to be yours,” she volleyed back, snapping her seatbelt into place and glaring at him.
He pushed the car into reverse and did a manouever that had them pointing down the drive. “Is that what you want from me?” He asked, as they moved down the drive.
“Everyone should be kind.”
“Well, newsflash, Princess. I am being kind. Getting you the hell out of your life in London, away from the idiots who are using you to further their own tenuous claim to celebrity, this is being kind.”
She shook her head. “How can you speak like that about my friends?”
“Friends,” he snapped sarcastically, shaking his head. “They’re your groupies.”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s not true!”
“You’ve surrounded yourself with people who worship you because you don’t like hearing the truth. Well, guess what? You need to hear the truth. You need to be hit over the head with it.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said, so loudly it was almost a shout.
“We have already discussed this! I know everything about you.” He stopped the car at the bottom of the drive, putting it into park before heading out of the gates. “Three nights after your eighteenth birthday, you were all over the papers. Do you remember why?”
Colour ran right to her hairline.
“Yes.” She turned away, facing straight ahead, her teeth gritted mutinously.
“Because you were making a fool of yourself with some equally entitled kid in a paparazzi-den.”
“We were just kissing,” she said stonily.
“His tongue was down your throat and his hands were up your dress.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
