Bridal Bargains

That was the moment when Claire realised that the tall, dark stranger was none other than Aunt Laura’s hot-shot tycoon employer! No wonder she is sounding so anxious, she mused ruefully.

‘I thought I told you not to move,’ the dark voice censured.

‘I’m fine now—really,’ she lied. ‘No one needs to miss their flight. In fact, I think I would like to get up now.’

‘I think not,’ the stranger drawled, his black eyes autocratic. ‘You will remain exactly where you are until the emergency services arrive to check you over.’

No way, Claire thought. If they took her to hospital then Aunt Laura would have her certified as unfit to take care of Melanie before she could even turn around!

Then, ‘Oh, no!’ she gasped, scrambling shakily to her feet. She’d left the baby in the flat on her own!

Her head felt groggy, her shoulders stiff, and her insides were shaking so badly that they were making her feel sick.

‘Where do you think you are going?’ the stranger demanded, vaulting to his feet like a well-honed athlete.

‘I have to go now,’ she murmured hazily.

Barely registering the small crowd clustered around them, she took a few staggering steps forward—then remembered the gold card still clutched in her hand—the cause of all of this trouble in the first place, she acknowledged mockingly as she spun back towards Aunt Laura.

‘Here …’ she said, plucking the card out from amongst the crumpled bank notes and handing it over.

Her aunt took it in grim silence, her red-painted mouth tight with angry embarrassment.

Turning back to find the stranger had moved to stand directly in her path, Claire mumbled an awkward, ‘Thanks for your trouble,’ went to divert around him only to come to yet another confused halt when she noticed the pristine whiteness of his shirt.

No jacket …

Glancing behind her, she was appalled to see his jacket lying on the road where it had slid away from her unnoticed when she’d got up. ‘Oh—I’m so sorry!’ she gasped, making a move to go and collect it.

He got there before her, though. Tall, dark, whipcord lean, he bent to retrieve it in one smooth movement.

‘I’m so very sorry.’ Claire apologised a second time.

His idle shrug dismissed the oversight. ‘Here …’ Instead the jacket landed back around her shoulders. ‘You seem to need it more than I do at this moment,’ he explained. Then he bent his head towards her to add gently, ‘You are shivering.’

‘But …’ The rest of what she had been going to say got lost in a sudden wave of dizziness. Her wrist was hurting, her chest felt very tight, and her head was beginning to thump. She became aware of a cluster of blurred faces all staring at them in rapt curiosity.

An arm came gently about her shoulders. ‘Come on,’ her aunt Laura’s boss said coolly. ‘Show me where you live and I will see that you get there …’

‘It really isn’t necessary,’ she protested.

‘It is, I assure you,’ he insisted rather grimly. ‘For I am not leaving until I am sure you have been checked out professionally.’

And it was amazing—but he meant it! He even sounded as though he cared! Hot tears suddenly filled her eyes, though she had no idea why they did. ‘It isn’t even as though it was your car that hit me!’ she choked out in something between a sob and a protest.

‘No, my van did that,’ another male voice intruded. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ the newcomer then enquired worriedly.

‘Yes—really.’ Seeing the shock still whitening the driver’s face, she sent him a reassuring smile. ‘A bit winded,’ she confessed. ‘But otherwise I’m OK. I’m sorry I was so stupid.’

‘No problem—no problem,’ the other man said, and he walked off looking relieved to be getting away from it all without getting into more trouble.

Claire felt another wave of dizziness wash over her. The arm resting across her shoulders suddenly became supportive. ‘Lead the way, Miss Cavell,’ his grim voice commanded.

Silent as a grave and stiff-backed as a corpse, Laura Cavell stalked into the house while they followed behind her. Her aunt was going to despise her for showing her up like this in front of her boss, Claire thought wearily as they trod the stairs. ‘You don’t have to go to this much trouble, you know,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I really am all right.’

‘No, you are not,’ the man beside her replied. ‘Your right wrist is injured. You have a cut on your head that needs attention. And when you breathe you gasp—which suggests you may have cracked a rib or two.’

An injured wrist. A cracked rib or two. Claire closed her eyes and wondered bleakly when something good was going to happen.

There didn’t seem to be much use in hoping for it, she decided heavily. Things around her seemed to be going from bad to worse with every passing minute.

When they reached her flat she broke free from him so she could precede him through the door. Laura was standing by the clothes-horse—valiantly trying to hide it, Claire suspected, with the first hint of humour she’d felt in weeks.

Then, from behind her, she could sense her aunt’s boss running his gaze over his shabby surroundings and all hint of humour completely left her. Outside in the street stood a limousine belonging to a man who was rich enough to travel everywhere in absolute luxury. His clothes shrieked of bespoke tailoring. No doubt his many homes were large and palatial, and here he was, Claire concluded, standing in what was probably the shabbiest abode it had ever been his misfortune to experience.

Shame washed through her. Why she didn’t know, because the feelings of a complete stranger really shouldn’t matter to her. But something made her turn around to confirm the look of distaste she just knew would be written all over his lean, dark, super-elegant features.

It was there.

She felt hurt, so very hurt.

Then, as if to completely demolish her, a soft snuffling sound came from the corner of the room, and the way his expression altered to a look of shocked horror as he accurately registered just what that sound belonged to finally wrecked what was left of her fragile composure. In an act of teeth-gritting defiance, she whipped off his jacket and threw it at him.

Startled, his black eyes widened on her. ‘You don’t have to come in,’ she clipped, suddenly alight with a bristling hostility. ‘And actually I would prefer it if you didn’t.’

‘Claire!’ her aunt objected furiously.

‘I don’t care!’ she flashed. ‘I just want you both to get out of here!’

Angrily she spun away to hurry over to the small baby crib where Melanie was still sleeping peacefully, she was relieved to discover.

But the tears weren’t far away. She could feel them coming as she stood there leaning over the crib with an aching wrist hanging limply by her side and her ribcage beginning to pain her badly.

Behind her the silence went on and on. They hadn’t gone and she wished that they would because she was beginning to feel rather hot and shaky.

‘Please go,’ she pleaded. Then, without warning, she fainted.

Maybe he saw it coming. Maybe he was already walking over to where she stood without her being aware that he’d moved. Whatever, as Claire felt herself going, as the blood slowly drained away from her head and her legs began to go limp, a pair of arms came securely around her, and the last thing she recalled was hearing the distinctive wail of an ambulance siren as she slumped heavily against him.

After that everything became a bit hazy, and she didn’t really start making sense of what was happening to her until she was travelling in the ambulance—accompanied by none other than Aunt Laura’s boss who was cradling Melanie.

But no Aunt Laura.

‘She will be joining us later,’ the stranger replied when Claire queried her aunt’s absence. ‘She needed to attend to some urgent business.’

Frowning at him through huge, pain-bruised blue eyes, she wondered why he wasn’t taking care of his own urgent business. But their arrival at the local hospital forestalled any more conversation between them when she was taken away to be examined and x-rayed.

Her ribs, she discovered, were only bruised, but her wrist was a different matter. A broken scaphoid, the doctor called it, and they would have to put her out briefly to reset it.

‘What about Melanie?’ she fretted as the pre-med they had given her began to send her brain fuzzy. ‘How am I going to cope with my wrist in plaster? Where’s Aunt Laura?’

‘If you want your aunt here, then I will get her here,’ a deep voice that was starting to sound very familiar quietly promised. She had expected Aunt Laura’s boss to melt away once they reached the hospital, but to her surprise he had stayed with her the whole time.

‘No,’ she sighed in shaky refusal, shifting restlessly where she lay because he didn’t understand. It wasn’t that she wanted her aunt—she just needed to know where she was and what she was doing because she didn’t trust her not to take matters into her own hands where Melanie was concerned, while she was in no fit state to stop her.

‘Don’t let her take her away from me,’ she mumbled slurredly.

‘I won’t,’ the voice promised.

That was the last thing she remembered for the next hour or so, so she had no idea that he continued to stand there beside her bed grimly watching over her until they came to wheel her away.

When she did eventually resurface, it was to find herself lying in a small side room with her wrist encased in its new plaster cast and secured by a sling. They had left her fingers and thumb free at least, she noticed—not that she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for that because she knew she still wasn’t going to be able to handle a baby.

What did concern her was that it was going to take up to eight weeks to mend.

Eight weeks …

Sighing heavily, she closed her weary eyes and tried pretending that this was all just a bad dream.

‘Worrying already?’ a deep voice dryly intruded.

CHAPTER TWO

CLAIRE’S eyes flicked open, something disturbingly close to pleasure feathering across her skin as a tall, dark figure loomed up in front of her in the very disturbing form of Aunt Laura’s hot-shot tycoon banker.

‘How are you feeling?’ he enquired politely.

‘Dopey,’ she replied, with a shy little grimace.

His dark head nodded in understanding. ‘Give yourself time to recover a little from the anaesthetic,’ he advised. ‘Then—if you feel up to it—they say you can go home.’

Home … That sounded good. So good in fact that she made herself sit up and slide her feet to the ground. It was only then that she realised what a poor state her clothes were in. Her jeans were scored with dust and tar from the road, and her blouse had managed to lose half of its buttons.

No wonder he threw his jacket over me, she thought wryly, making a half-hearted attempt to tidy herself. But it was difficult to look pin-neat after the kind of day that she’d had, she decided heavily. While this man, whose eyes she could sense were watching her so intently, still looked elegant and sleek and clean even though he had spent most of the day rescuing fallen maidens, abandoned babies, and—

‘Where’s Melanie?’ she asked sharply, unable to believe she had been so irresponsible as to not give the poor baby a single thought until now!

For the first time today, he suddenly looked cross. ‘I would have expected by now that you would trust me to ensure your child is perfectly safe and well taken care of,’ he clipped out impatiently.

‘Why?’ Claire immediately challenged that. ‘Because my aunt Laura works for you?’

Something made his broad shoulders flex in sudden tension, though what made them do it Claire had no idea, but she felt her own tension rise in response to it.

‘Just because you were gracious enough to pick me up and dust me off, then condescended to accompany me here instead of going off to Milan, that does not automatically win trust, you know,’ she pointed out, coming upright on decidedly shaky legs.

‘Madrid,’ he corrected her absently—as if it really mattered!

‘I don’t know you from Adam,’ Claire continued as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘For all I know you may be one of those weirdos that prey on innocent young females in vulnerable situations!’

A wild thing to say—a terrible thing to say considering what he had done for her today. Watching the way his elegant frame stiffened in affront, Claire was instantly contrite.

But as she opened her mouth to apologise he beat her to it—by retaliating in kind.

‘Young you may be,’ he grimly conceded. ‘What are you, after all—not much more than eighteen? And vulnerable you certainly are at the moment—one only has to look at your face to know that a relatively minor road accident was not enough to cause quite that amount of fatigue in one so young. But innocent?’ he questioned with cutting cynicism. ‘One cannot be innocent and give birth to a child, Miss Stenson. It is, believe me, a physical impossibility.’

Two things hit her simultaneously as she stood there absorbing all of that. One was the obvious fact that he had got her age wrong. And the other was his mistaken belief that Melanie was her daughter!

Had Aunt Laura not bothered to explain anything to him? she wondered. And who the hell did he think he was, standing in judgement over her, anyway?

‘I am not eighteen—I am twenty-one!’ she corrected him angrily. ‘And Melanie is not my daughter—she’s my sister! Our mother died, you see, just two weeks after giving birth. And if you hadn’t been so quick to send my aunt off to do whatever business you felt was more important to her than we are,’ she railed on, regardless of the clear fact that she had already managed to turn him to stone, ‘then maybe she would have had the chance to explain all of this to you, so you didn’t have to stand here insulting me! And my innocence or lack of it is none of your damned business,’ she tagged on for good measure.

At that point, and giving neither of them a chance to recover, the door swung open and a nurse walked in carrying Melanie.

‘Ah, you’re awake.’ She smiled at Claire, seemingly unaware of the sizzling atmosphere she had walked into. Stepping over to the bed, she gently laid the sleeping baby down on it. ‘She has been fed, changed and generally spoiled,’ she informed them as she straightened. ‘So you need not concern yourself about her welfare for the next few hours.’

‘Thank you,’ Claire murmured politely. ‘You’ve all been very kind.’

‘No problem,’ the nurse dismissed. ‘If you feel up to it, you can leave whenever you want,’ she concluded, and with a brisk squeak of rubber on linoleum was gone again—leaving a tension behind her that stuck like glue to Claire’s teeth and her throat, making it impossible for her to speak or swallow.

So instead she moved to check on the baby. As the nurse had assured her, Melanie looked perfectly contented. Her left hand went out to gently touch a petal-soft cheek while he looked on in grim silence.

‘I apologise,’ he murmured suddenly. ‘For the—altercation earlier. I had no right to remark upon either your life or your morals. And I certainly had no right to make certain assumptions about either you or your situation. I am, in fact, ashamed of myself for doing so.’

Quite a climb-down, Claire made note, nodding in acceptance of his apology. ‘Who are you?’ she then asked curiously. ‘I mean—what is your name? It seems crazy that we have spent almost half the day together and I don’t even know your name.’

‘Your aunt never mentioned me?’ he questioned.

Claire shook her head. ‘Only that she worked with the head of a merchant bank,’ she told him.

He seemed to need a few moments to take this information in, which Claire thought was rather odd of him. ‘My name is Andreas Markopoulou,’ he then supplied. ‘I am Greek,’ he added, as though he felt it needed saying.

Feeling suddenly quite painfully at a loss as to what she was supposed to do with his name now that she had it, all Claire could come up with was another small nod of acknowledgement.

Consequently, the silence came back, but it was a different kind of silence now as they stood there eyeing each other as if neither quite knew what to do next. It was all very strange, very—hypnotic, Claire thought hazily.

Then he seemed to give himself a mental shake and stepped up to the other side of the bed. ‘Maybe we should leave now,’ he huskily suggested.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and bent with the intention of scooping Melanie up with her good arm.

But he stopped her. ‘I will carry her,’ he insisted, adding almost diffidently now that they seemed to be trying very hard not to tread on each other’s feelings, ‘Perhaps you would accept the use of my jacket again? The day is drawing in and it must be quite cold outside …’

A hesitant nod of agreement had him rounding the bed as he removed his jacket so he could place it across her slender shoulders, then he was turning to get Melanie. And without another word passing between them they made their way to the hospital exit.

Just as he had predicted, it was cold outside, but within seconds of them appearing his car came sweeping into the kerb just in front of them. As soon as the car stopped, the driver’s door shot open and a steely-haired short, stocky man in a grey chauffeur’s uniform stepped out.

Rounding the car’s shiny dark red bonnet, he touched his peaked hat in greeting and deftly opened the rear door, politely inviting Claire to get into the car.

Wincing a little because her bruised ribs didn’t like the pressure placed on them to make the manoeuvre, it was a minute or two before she felt able to take in the sheer luxury of her surroundings—the soft kid leather upholstery and impressive amount of in-car communications hardware.

It all felt very plush, very decadent. Very—Andreas Markopoulou, Claire mused wryly as the door on the other side of the car opened and the man himself coiled his impressive lean length into the seat next to her—without Melanie.

‘Be at ease,’ he said before Claire could even voice the alarmed question forming on her lips. ‘She is perfectly safe. See, I will show you …’

Reaching out towards his door panel, he pressed a button that sent the dark glass partition between them and the driver sliding smoothly downwards. Having to move carefully so it didn’t hurt too much, Claire sat forward a little so she could peer over the front passenger seat—where she found Melanie snugly strapped into a baby car seat fixed to the seat next to the beaming driver.

A car seat just for Melanie? ‘You really shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble for us,’ Claire mumbled awkwardly. ‘You’ve done more than enough as it is.’

‘It is nothing,’ he dismissed, sitting back and pressing the button that brought the partition window sliding up again.

Claire was edging herself carefully back into her seat when a sudden thought hit her. ‘That seat isn’t new, is it?’ she asked. ‘You have borrowed it from someone?’ Oh—please let him say it’s borrowed! she prayed fervently.

But the arrogant look he levelled at her spoke absolute volumes, and had Claire stiffening in dismay. ‘But the expense!’ she cried. ‘I won’t be able to pay you back!’

‘I was not expecting you to,’ drawled a man to whom money had obviously never been a luxury he couldn’t afford to toss away! And with a shrug that dismissed the whole subject as boring he turned his head to glance outside as the car slid into smooth motion.

But Claire couldn’t let him just dismiss it like that. It wasn’t right that he should fork out for anything for them! ‘I will have to ask my aunt if she will reimburse you,’ she decided stubbornly.

‘Forget it,’ he said.

‘But I don’t want to forget it!’ she cried. ‘I hate being beholden to anybody!’

Arrogantly, he ignored all of that. ‘Please fasten your seat belt,’ he instructed instead. Then, ‘Leave it,’ he advised when she opened her mouth to continue the argument, the sheer softness of his tone enough to still her tongue. ‘It is done. The seat is bought. Further argument is futile …’

Lowering her face, Claire began attempting to fasten her seat belt around her with fingers that were suddenly shaking badly. In all her life she had never been spoken to quite like that, even by Aunt Laura, who could be intimidating enough.

‘I can’t do this!’ she sighed after a few taut moments of hopeless fumbling that made her frustratingly aware of how incapacitated she was going to be with one hand rendered completely useless, and felt the tears that were too ready to appear just lately begin to fill her eyes again.

With a smooth grace, he leaned across the space separating them, took the belt from her trembling fingers and, carefully making sure that the belt sat low down on her body so that it missed both her ribs and her plaster-cast, he locked it into place.

He glanced up, saw the tears, and released a soft sigh. ‘Don’t get upset, because I have a tendency to cut into people,’ he murmured apologetically. ‘It is a—design fault in my make-up,’ he explained sardonically. ‘I dislike having my actions questioned, so I react badly. My fault—not yours …’

‘You should not have spent money on us without my say-so,’ Claire couldn’t resist saying despite the fact that she seemed to know instinctively that—half apology or not—he wasn’t going to like her resurrecting the argument.

Still, if he was angry, he managed to keep his voice level. ‘Well, it is done now.’ And although the remark was dismissive again at least he cloaked it in a gentler tone. ‘How is your wrist?’ he enquired, wisely changing the subject.

Glancing down to where the sling held the heavy plaster-cast against her slender body, she noticed an ugly swelling around the base of her thumb. ‘It’s OK,’ she lied.

In fact it was throbbing quite badly now. But then, so was her head—and her ribcage. Closing her eyes, she let herself relax back into the seat, feeling so tired, so utterly used up now that she had an idea that if she was left to do it she could easily sleep for a whole year.

But she wasn’t going to be able to sleep, was she? Instead she was going to have to come up with a way to take care of Melanie while her wrist was like this.

Out from behind the dull throb of her physical pain and her mental exhaustion her aunt Laura’s rotten suggestion reared its ugly head. It was enough to make her open her eyes, make her sit up straight as aching muscles knotted up with stress. Unaware of the pair of black eyes that were observing her narrowly, her anxious gaze went dancing around as if on a restless search for deliverance.

‘What’s wrong?’ he enquired levelly.

‘Nothing.’ She shook her head. For how could she tell him that his highly respected PA could be crass enough to want to give away one of her own nieces rather than help share responsibility for her? It was wicked, simply wicked.

Yet you said you were prepared to consider the option, Claire grimly reminded herself.

Her eyes grew stark, the tired bruising around the sockets becoming more pronounced as the weight of all her many problems began pressing on her once again.

Then other things began intruding on her consciousness. The fact, for instance, that the car was driving them through a part of London that was very familiar to her since she’d used to live around here until three years ago.

But that was a long way away from the East End district where she lived now. Frowning in puzzlement, she glanced around to find Andreas Markopoulou’s fathomless black eyes fixed on her watchfully.

‘This isn’t the way to my flat.’ She stated the obvious.

Those dark eyes didn’t so much as flicker. ‘No,’ he confirmed, adding smoothly, ‘This is the way to my home.’

His home … Claire repeated to herself, and tried to work out why he had used the words with the kind of emphasis that had set instincts firing out all kinds of warnings at her.

‘Your driver is going to drop you off first,’ she nodded, deciding that was what he had been implying.