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She squashed the thought and stood up as well. ‘Where are your bags?’ Knowing her sister, there would be more than one. ‘I’ll fetch them. I’m sorry. You must be exhausted. We’ll go straight back to my place, and of course you’re welcome to stay with me for as long as you’re over here.’ She smiled, but the smile felt forced, and she didn’t want to look at Theo just in case she found him staring at her sister. Men always did. It was a natural reaction they just couldn’t help. ‘It’ll be great catching up in the morning, Claire.’ There, that was better. Back into her usual appeasing role, always making life easier for her sister. ‘You can tell me what you’ve been up to.’
‘Dear Heather.’ Claire gave Theo one of her most wide-eyed expressions of girlish camaraderie. ‘She’s always been such a carer. I know I’ve been horrid—’ she turned to her sister with a rueful smile ‘—hardly ever getting in touch. But I knew you wouldn’t mind. I had dreams…’ The implication was that Heather was just a little too dull to have dreams.
Heather hoped guiltily that Claire’s move home wasn’t going to be a permanent one.
‘I have dreams too, Claire.’ Asserting herself was an uphill struggle. Having always played the same role in her relationship with her sister, it was woefully easy to slip back into it.
‘Have you? Well…look, I’ve just brought a couple of bags, and to answer your question, yes, I’m planning on making my home in London.’
‘That’s super.’
‘I shall need somewhere to stay until I get a place of my own…’
‘You can stay with me as long as you like. Although it is a very small flat…’
‘Oh, it’ll be fun to share! Remember we used to at home, when we were kids?’
Heather remembered a shared room in which ninety per cent had been given over to her sister’s possessions while she’d had to make do with compacting everything she owned into the minimum amount of space. She nearly groaned aloud at the prospect of that recurring.
‘Unless,’ Claire said, sliding her eyes mischievously over to Theo and lowering her voice huskily, ‘some dishy chap comes along and rescues poor little me…’
Heather held her breath and waited for the inevitable offer. After all, wasn’t there a vacancy for one housekeeper up for grabs? Housekeeper able and willing to offer services beyond the call of duty? And who could resist Claire’s charms? She might not have the elongated stick-like beauty of his usual women, but she had a hell of a lot more vivaciousness. And she wouldn’t be one to go harping on about commitment and relationships. She enjoyed her freedom as much as Theo did.
Theo couldn’t fail to catch the meaningful glitter in Claire’s eye. He stood up smoothly, making sure that he didn’t reveal in his eyes the depth of distaste that he felt, and nodded in the direction of the bathroom.
‘Your sister had a bath when she arrived,’ he told Heather. ‘You must have things there to collect…?’ He spared Claire a glance, noticing the little pout that changed her face from appealing angel to sulky child.
‘Heaps. Thanks for reminding me.’ She flounced out.
Theo looked at the cute retreating rear thoughtfully, then walked over to Heather and stared down at her.
‘I’m sorry Claire interrupted your evening. I didn’t get around to dropping her an e-mail to let her know my new address.’ In truth, Heather’s e-mails to her sister had become few and far between. Claire rarely replied to the ones she sent, and in the end Heather had confined herself to the occasional one, filling her in on superficial bits of information.
Now, of course, she felt horribly guilty. She had to remind herself that they were no longer kids. They were both adults, and Claire had as much responsibility for maintaining their relationship as she had. But lifelong programming had kicked in. Heather felt muddled. Suddenly she wanted her old self back. The big, sack-like clothes she could hide behind. The ungainly body which had never deserved to be put on display.
‘Has she always been like that?’ Theo asked quietly, wishing that Heather would at least look at him. But she stubbornly stared down at the ground and shrugged.
‘Like what?’
He gently placed his finger under her chin and Heather grudgingly met his eyes.
‘Asserting her superiority…putting you down…showing no interest in you or what you’ve been up to. I could go on. She had quite a little chat with me before you came here. Made sure to let me know in not so many words how poor little Heather had been such a sad thing growing up, such a brick…always there in the background helping out.’
Heather couldn’t actually reply to this because her throat felt thick with tears of humiliation.
‘You don’t have to feel sorry for me,’ she said in a fierce undertone.
‘I don’t. You feel sorry for yourself.’
Heather recoiled as if she had been struck. How dared he be so accurate in summing her up? Claire would have had loads of stories to tell and, yes, she could just imagine her sister cleverly putting her down. She wondered whether they had both chuckled over her. Had he told her about their brief fling? Had he confided his own amusement and irritation over the way he had managed to ambush her emotions? She hated herself for thinking like that, and in some part of her knew that Theo was not the type of man to behave in such a manner, but she couldn’t think straight. She was fifteen again, fat and gauche and watching from the sidelines as her sister flaunted her good looks and tried to give her little pointers on improving her image.
‘I do not!’ she retorted feebly. ‘Anyway, Claire can’t help being the person that she is.’
‘I saw my bathroom after she’d used it. How are you going to live with all that clutter in your small flat?’
‘Is that your way of telling me that you’ll do me a favour by letting her move in here with you?’ Like a horse without reins, her imagination galloped along at a pace, disregarding the hurdles and bolting towards a conclusion that left her miserable and sickened. She just couldn’t bear the thought of Theo and her sister…
Whatever answer he had been about to make was interrupted by Claire, who breezed back into the room gaily waving a larger than average holdall which, she informed Heather, was jam-packed with all her cosmetics. ‘The bags are over there, in the corner. Would you be a darling and bring them for me? I’m so tired I could lie right down on this floor and fall asleep!’
Heather sighed under her breath. She would have to have a long chat with her sister about the impossibility of staying with her for long. There just wasn’t going to be the room to house the mountain of things Claire seemed to have brought over with her—and who only knew what else was sailing its way across the Atlantic, destination one minuscule flat that could barely contain the possessions of its one frugal tenant?
‘I’ll get my driver to take you to your place. Leave the bags. He’ll bring them down for you.’
‘You have a driver?’ Claire’s eyes widened as she digested this further piece of information about Theo’s financial status.
‘He’s very, very, very rich,’ Heather said, with a lack of tact that shocked her—although when she glanced at Theo it was to find that he was smiling with dry amusement.
‘Oh, three verys might be one too many,’ he murmured, wickedly teasing.
Claire, catching an undertone that Heather seemed oblivious to, waded in quickly, making sure that attention was returned to her. ‘One can never be too thin or too rich,’ she piped up. ‘To quote somebody or other.’ She grinned flirtatiously at Theo while Heather ostentatiously avoided them both by planting herself firmly at the door, hand on knob, ready to go.
‘So I’ve heard,’ Theo said noncommittally. He reached into his pocket for his mobile and had a swift conversation, unnerved by Claire’s china-blue eyes narrowly fixed on him. By the door, Heather was standing in a state of such rigid tension that he felt she might crack if he touched her.
‘Thanks again,’ Heather said as they congregated around her.
Theo deliberately positioned himself so that his back was to Claire and leant over Heather, resting his arm against the doorframe. ‘Okay?’ he murmured. Having lived his life on one manageable emotional plane, Theo was now resigned to the wild assortment of feelings the woman standing and glaring roused in him. Right now, the urge to protect her was like a physical need. The phoney, altruistic intentions he had piously claimed for warning her away from Scott now crystallised into a very real, pressing desire that she shouldn’t be hurt or overwhelmed by her sister.
Unfortunately, he thought, she was hardly going to believe a word he said on the subject, given that he had already used up his ration of so-called concern for her welfare.
‘I’ll be seeing you,’ he promised, and Heather shot him a jaded, disbelieving look.
‘Well,’ she muttered, ‘if you do, it certainly won’t be in your office on all fours, cleaning your floor.’
‘Are we ready to leave?’ Claire said plaintively, and Theo drew back, cursing under his breath.
