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‘I still don’t... Why are you even here? How did you know that I was there...at the police station?’
‘It was hard not to know. I think most news channels carried the story and the pictures of you leaving your flat. There was also a nice little interview with the taxi driver, who spoke quite movingly of your tears.’
She looked horrified by the information. ‘Oh, God! I didn’t cry.’ A few sniffs did not constitute crying.
‘It could have been worse, but apparently you reminded him of his daughter. Is the air conditioning too low? You’re shivering—shall I turn it up?’
‘No, I’m fine.’ Dabbing her tongue at the beads of sweat along her upper lip, she managed a cracked laugh. ‘Delayed reaction. I’ve just never been a police suspect before.’ She tried to make it sound like a joke and didn’t make it.
He fought the urge to comfort her and masked his concern with a show of abruptness. ‘It’s their job. It wasn’t personal.’
‘It felt pretty personal.’ She paused, realising that the car had slowed and taken a turn under an arch into a private parking facility.
The longing to be in her own space and lock the door behind her was physical in its intensity.
‘When will it be safe to go back to my flat?’ Anna was inclined to risk it, anyway. It wasn’t as if he were going to stop her.
He could always kiss her—that had been pretty effective.
The thought came from nowhere and for several seconds her mind went blank as she relived the wild urgency she had experienced before he had closed it down.
Hehad closed it down!
‘I think I should go back to my flat. Surely if I’m so damned infamous...there’s nowhere I can hide? There are people in hotels too,’ she pointed out. ‘Maybe I should run away to Iceland?’
Anna needed her own space. She’d spent the entire day so far putting on a mask for people, trying to prove she was innocent, trying to prove that she was totally cool with breathing the same air as this man.
‘Somewhere warmer perhaps?’ Soren’s gaze ran over the pale contours of her face. Her skin was less creamy warmth and more ghostly pale. Even without the blue smudges emphasised by the shadow of her long lashes there was a bruised quality to her green-eyed gaze.
His scrutiny made her want to cover her face; the impulse made her annoyed with herself all over again.
The car had come to a stop now, but he made no attempt to get out.
‘Has no one ever told you it’s rude to stare? Or have you never seen a woman without a full face of make-up before?’ she grouched.
‘Not one that looks like you.’
Their glances held a moment too long, long enough to make her heart thud out of control and put a stomach-quivering question mark in her head, until he continued, his attitude all practicality tinged with something close to boredom that made her feel she was making a big deal out of nothing.
‘This isn’t a hotel. My mother keeps an apartment here. She rarely uses it.’ An expression she struggled to name slid across his face. ‘You can stay there until things are settled.’
‘You mean until I know if I’m about to be arrested?’
He watched her attempt to make it a joke. Even taking away the quivering lip she clamped down on hard, it would not have convinced a baby, though it did produce a fresh kick of guilt, this time tinged with admiration as the image of her pushing her way through the press pack earlier played in his head on a slow-motion loop.
It took someone with hidden reserves to come out of that sort of thing with dignity, and she had. There must have been some people watching her as she’d looked straight ahead, not reacting to the questions being slung at her like missiles, who had wanted to cheer.
Besides him.
‘You’ve had a bad day, haven’t you,cara?’ His languid delivery almost disguised the concern he resented feeling.
Anna felt her eyes fill with tears and blinked rapidly, trying not to look at the shoulder that was too close and too tempting. ‘For God’s sake, don’t be nice to me,’ she demanded through clenched teeth.
Some of the tension left his face as he loosed a laugh. It would seem she required his sympathy even less than he wanted to give it—the more he was around this woman, the more unusual he found her.
The more attractive he found her.
‘Don’t worry, I can never keep it up. Nature will win out in the end.’ His white grin held self-mockery.
