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His eyes were unmistakably carrying out their own surveillance of her body and the world seemed to stop spinning. Time stood still.
“You’ve been well? You are so famous! I cannot open the paper without seeing your picture. And always so beautiful in those dresses you wear.” Marta clucked her approval but it brought colour to Claudia’s cheeks and lifted Stavros’s eyes to hers, his gaze glowering with disapproval.
“Yes,” he murmured. “Claudia is a natural when it comes to drawing attention to herself.”
Marta sent her boss a look of frustration. “Ignore him. He is a bear with a sore head at the moment.”
“More so than usual?” Claudia responded archly.
“Oh, of course…”
“Thank you, Marta,” Stavros interrupted.
Marta grinned, without any indication that she cared she’d just been dismissed. “Dinner will be right out.”
She moved quickly, her wiry frame spry despite the fact she must have been in her seventies at least.
> “I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks you’re an unreasonable bastard,” Claudia simpered with false amusement.
His eyes flashed warning to hers. “You’re not. And nor is Marta. That seems to be a popular opinion.”
Curiosity flared inside Claudia. Was something going on with her guardian? Something in his own life that was making him act so overbearing and unreasonable?
“Drink?” He prompted.
Contrary to Claudia’s carefully cultivated image, she didn’t actually drink a lot at all. Not since that night of her eighteenth birthday when her world had come crumbling down around her ears, anyway.
“Yes,” she said, instinctively shying away from Stavros realizing that she was nothing like ‘Claudia’ from the papers. “A martini,” she added for good measure.
His eyes drew together for a brief moment and then he nodded, moving to the bar at the side of the room. It was fully stocked with just about every liquor bottle Claudia could imagine.
Dyslexia was a funny thing. She found reading almost impossible but she loved shopping for groceries because she could pick items based solely on their packaging. She had become adept at recognizing key words like ‘low-fat’ or ‘sugar free’, and the rest worked itself out.
“You found your room?”
“Yes.” Her eyes held his for a moment. “And the clothes you bought for me.”
He said nothing, and her heart trembled in her chest. “How long have you been planning this?”
“Planning what?”
“To bring me to Barnwell?”
“Not long.” He shook a stainless steel container from one hand to the other then popped the lid and poured the contents into two martini glasses.
“Long enough to arrange a wardrobe for me.”
“That was the work of a day. My assistant brought those things out yesterday.”
“Ah. So you didn’t browse the shelves of Selfridges for my clothes?” She pushed, and then, because she was somewhat enjoying playing the part, “You didn’t run your fingers over the silk underwear, selecting which you thought might suit me?”
Surprise at her boldness was throbbing in her gut, but it was dwarfed by the satisfaction she had of seeing colour slash his cheekbones.
“I have no interest in your underwear,” he said sardonically. “A fact I believe I’ve made abundantly clear to you in the past.”
Ouch.
What had she expected? That she could play with fire and not get burned?
