has that effect on people,’ he nodded, sobering slightly, a little colour having returned to his cheeks after his ten-minute nap. ‘I remember I used to make your mother angry a lot,’ he said heavily. ‘Do you think she’ll come back?’ He looked longingly towards the door where her mother had so recently fled.
Silke sighed as she moved to his side, offering no objection as he lightly clasped her hand as he had the last time. ‘I’m really not sure,’ she answered him honestly. ‘My mother has always been a law unto herself.’ She grimaced as she remembered the chaotic years of her early childhood, when she had never been quite sure what her mother might do.
Henry gave a half-smile. ‘I remember that too,’ he nodded.
Despite the fact that she realised how ill this man was, Silke’s curiosity momentarily got the better of her. ‘How—?’ She broke off abruptly as the office door burst open without warning, her initial hope that it might be her mother immediately dashed as Lyon Buchanan strode purposefully into the room.
He came to an abrupt halt just inside the door, taking in the scene with one cold glance, his narrowed gaze raking scathingly over Silke’s hand so cosily enfolded in his uncle’s much larger one.
Silke’s initial reaction was to pull her hand sharply away, but at the first sign that she was about to do that Henry’s hand tightened its grip. She looked down at him, knowing by his determined expression that he wasn’t about to release her without a fuss. And that she could do without!
Instead she turned her frustrated anger on Lyon Buchanan—he was the reason for it anyway! ‘What did you do?’ she said scathingly. ‘Fly here?’ She returned his gaze as challengingly as he was now looking at her.
‘Almost,’ he bit out grimly, his attention turning to his uncle, although the older man was obviously slightly recovered now. ‘When are you going to realise you’re nearly seventy years old?’ Lyon said impatiently.
‘Sixty-seven, boy,’ his uncle returned with some of his earlier spirit. ‘And don’t worry, I’ve just decided I’m going to be around for a lot more years yet.’ His softened gaze rested on Silke after he had made this statement.
Lyon Buchanan’s hard gaze returned to her too, a sharp questioning in those icy eyes as he took in the blush that seemed to be becoming a permanent fixture in Silke’s usually creamy cheeks. ‘Indeed?’ he finally bit out tersely. ‘Well, I think we should get you to Peter Carruthers and let him decide that, don’t you?’ he said scathingly. ‘Can you walk, or shall I—?’
‘I can walk,’ his uncle assured him firmly. ‘And I want Silke to come with me.’
Now it was Silke’s turn to look at him sharply. She was worried about him herself, and, much as she would have hated having to contact Lyon Buchanan again, she had intended telephoning him later to assure herself that his uncle was indeed OK. But she hadn’t considered actually going along with Henry to see his doctor!
‘Now that I’ve found you, I’m not going to let you out of my sight again until we’ve talked further. I’m sure you can guess why,’ Henry told her ruefully.
Because of her mother. ‘Satin’ had run away, but he had no intention of letting her daughter escape as easily. And if Silke was honest she was more than a little curious to know more about ‘Hal’ and ‘Satin’ herself!
But she could see from Lyon Buchanan’s furious expression, and the angry glitter in his eyes, that he had completely misread the situation—and that he didn’t like his conclusions one little bit! Well, Silke didn’t give a damn how he felt about it; she would accompany Henry!
‘Of course I’ll come with you.’ She squeezed the elderly man’s hand reassuringly. No matter how much Lyon Buchanan might hate it!
And as they helped Henry out of the office and down to Lyon Buchanan’s car—parked illegally on double yellow lines; what else?—it was obvious how much he did hate Silke’s presence there, his eyes glittering down coldly at her as they stood either side of Henry to help him down the stairs and out into the street. And his face was set in grimly disapproving lines as Henry insisted he wanted Silke to sit beside him in the back of the silver Mercedes.
‘You’ll have more room to make yourself comfortable if Miss Jordan sits in the front next to me,’ he told his uncle harshly, somehow managing to infuse a wealth of contempt into the ‘Miss Jordan’.
Making Silke feel like kicking him up the seat of his tailored trousers! In fact, the temptation was so strong that she had to turn her attention firmly to Henry to actually stop herself carrying out the action. ‘I think, in this case, your nephew is probably right,’ she told the elderly man gently, seeing an answering humour in Henry’s eyes as his lips twitched in appreciation of her insertion of ‘in this case’. But, as far as she was concerned, Lyon Buchanan was wrong about most other things; he was a man who made assumptions and then acted upon them. ‘It isn’t far, is it?’ she prompted the arrogant man as she climbed into the passenger seat, concerned at how white Henry now looked as he slumped down in the back seat.
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