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“It is also what’s happening.”
“I hate to break it to you and your God-complex, but you can’t actually detain me against my wishes.”
“No,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “But if you do not do as I say, and I mean everything I say, then I will withhold your allowance completely.”
Startled eyes flew to him. His face, in profile, was resolute. “You can’t be serious.”
“Why should you not go and get a job like most people your age? You have a home and I would not take that away.”
“How very generous of you,” she snapped sarcastically, lifting fingers to her temples and rubbing them. Even if she made significant cutbacks, she still had expenses. Obligations. Far more than she could ever cover without her allowance.
“It is two weeks,” he said, softening his voice.
Tears pricked her eyes again. “It’s Christmas in two weeks.”
He flicked a glance at her. “Yes.”
“You mean for us to spend Christmas at Barnwell? Together?”
His look pierced her. “I hadn’t thought of it in those terms,” he said. “I will be there, and you will be, so yes, we will spend Christmas together. At Barnwell.”
Claudia swallowed and turned to stare out of the window at the suburban scenery of outer-London. Stavros drove the roads expertly, handling them with confidence, even as they moved into the countryside and ice was in the air.
Christmas in Barnwell? With her dictatorial guardian for company?
“I have no clothes,” she said after a heavy moment of contemplation.
She was still looking out of the window so missed the way his mouth sneered at the predictability of her first concern. “You will have access to the internet,” he said with barely concealed impatience. “Having seen your AMEX bill for the last three years, I know you are familiar with the concept of online shopping.”
She blinked in surprise. He’d looked at her credit card bills? “I always presumed you had a secretary who took care of that kind of thing.”
Of course he did. He had three secretaries who ran the mundane tasks of his daily life, including the administering of his ward’s concerns. But he had taken more of an interest in her activities since that night. The night she’d drunk way too much and pressed her teenage body to his, begging him to make love to her, to make her a woman.
A shiver of something like warning ran down his spine.
He had wanted her that night. He had been disgusted in himself for the way his body had responded to his best friend’s teenage daughter’s heavy-handed attempts at seduction. And he’d been furious at her for the wanton lack of self-respect she’d demonstrated.
It had shown him that Claudia was at risk of moving into behaviours of which he certainly didn’t approve. So yes, he’d personally overseen her spending, and he’d had many reasons to worry since.
Christmas was a particularly extravagant time for the literary heiress. This year, he would keep a closer eye on her. At some point, she would need to learn to manage her own affairs. Perhaps this would be the beginning of fiscal responsibility?
“Stavros?” She prompted, her eyes roaming his face.
“Yes, Claudia.” He sighed heavily. “I personally went through your spending. That is one of the duties your father entrusted to me when he asked me to take care of you.”
“To take care of me?” She repeated, the words heavy with scorn. “And you think that’s what you’ve done?”
“You disagree?” He asked, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the road ahead.
“Oh, I suppose you could say you’ve cared for me,” she huffed angrily. “If you think seeing me for the bare minimum time each year suffices.”
“And you think taking you to bed would have been better?”
CHAPTER TWO
THE WORDS HUNG BETWEEN them like an actual, physical shape. Claudia stared at it, and passed it to her captor, and her insides quivered with surprise and shock and yes, damn it, with remembered desire.
“No,” she mumbled after a moment, wishing the car would open to reveal a hatch through which she might escape, and disappear. How dare he throw that night in her face? She had regretted it every time she’d thought of it since.
