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It was ridiculous...bewildering and humiliating. Why did she react this way to him? What was it about him that seemed to tap into something inside her...a need...a hunger...? An image of the answering hunger she had glimpsed in his eyes flashed into her head and her heart gave a heavy traitorous thud then started cantering crazily again.
She was complaining a hell of a lot, Chloe reflected, but if she really didn’t want Nik chasing her, throwing temptation in her way, why hadn’t she done something about it?
She could.
And she knew it. There was a fail-safe way, a one-hundred-per-cent-guaranteed method to make him back off at her disposal... It wasn’t as if she’d even have to show him; just using the words would have the desired effect. She could casually throw into the conversation that she had some ugly scars and always would have.
In Nik’s head she was perfect. She inhaled and lifted her chin, a little smile playing across her mouth. She had been perfect and she had taken it for granted. Strange how you didn’t appreciate something until it was gone.
The smile vanished and along with it the enduring sadness; she’d been lucky and she knew it. She no longer wallowed in self-pity or asked herself why it had to happen to her.
She contented herself with imagining that one day there would be a man in her life; of course, he might not make her think of passionate, all-consuming sex the moment she saw him but there were other, more important things in a relationship...deeper things that lasted the test of time.
It would be nice to have both, but she was a realist and she knew few people were that lucky.
* * *
They had disembarked the helicopter when Nik joined them, his tall, broad-shouldered figure drawing glances from the handful of fellow travellers that hovered nearby. Watching his approach through the shield of her lashes, Chloe had to admit it was not surprising he drew every eye; he might be the most irritating man on the planet with an ego to match, but he was also the most supremely elegant and by far the sexiest.
‘If you don’t mind I’ll hang around for a bit and hand Eugenie over to her mum personally,’ she said.
There was a slight time delay before he responded and the enigmatic smile that briefly tugged at the corners of his mouth troubled her, but as she’d been geared up for an argument his non-reaction was a bit of an anticlimax.
‘The car should be waiting; it’s this way.’ His gesture invited Chloe to step ahead of him.
The waiting car was another long, shiny monster, and as they approached the driver jumped out, a Greek version of Fred.
Nik called out to him in Greek, the man called something back in response and walked around to the passenger door, but before he had a chance to open it an open-topped Jeep driven at speed drew up behind it. Chloe stepped back from the cloud of dust it threw up, but before it had even settled Tatiana, wearing a cotton shirt over a tee shirt and shorts, her shiny bell of dark hair pulled back off her make-up-free face in a severe ponytail, jumped out.
Chloe felt the teenager beside her tense and heard her sharp intake of breath, before she stuck out her chin and quavered out defiantly, ‘Before you say anything—’
‘How could you?’ her mother ground out.
‘I...’ Without warning the youngster’s belligerence vanished and she started to sob heartbrokenly. A second later she was in her mother’s arms being told everything would be all right. Chin resting on her daughter’s head, a shiny-eyed Tatiana shot a look of gratitude in Chloe’s direction.
‘We are so, so grateful to you, Chloe.’
‘It’s fine. I’m glad I could help.’
The image of Chloe sniffing into a tissue at the scene in front of her while she blinked hard made something tighten in Nik’s chest, but he ignored it and drawled out sarcastically, ‘Are you going to cry too?’
‘I am not crying!’ Chloe snapped back, blowing her nose hard.
‘Do you mind travelling back with Nik?’ Tatiana asked, glancing at her brother for the first time. ‘I could do with talking one to one with this one.’ She kissed the top of her daughter’s head. ‘Alone.’
Chloe minded very much. In fact, the idea of sharing the back seat of the limo with Nik filled her with horror, but she hid her feelings behind a smile and shook her head.
‘Actually I don’t mind waiting here to catch a lift straight back to the mainland.’
Tatiana looked blank and then shocked. ‘You don’t think we’d let you go straight back, do you? Heavens, you’re here as our guest for as long as you like.’
‘I couldn’t possibly stay.’ Chloe tried to sound firm, but all she sounded was tired as she lifted a hand to her ticcing eyelid.
‘Perhaps Chloe has other places to be.’ And other people she’d rather be with, he thought sourly, and the silent addition caused the line between his dark brows to deepen.
‘You can’t fly straight back,’ Tatiana argued.
‘Not unless she sprouts wings,’ Nik inserted drily. ‘Marco is refuelling the jet and then heading straight off to Düsseldorf.’
