floor. From the way his jaw clenched, he didn’t like the question and liked even less having to offer an answer.
‘I did not make love to you for the hell of it,’ he said.
Claire sat there beside him and smothered the urge to sigh loudly in relief as she felt a huge weight lift from her shoulders because, if he had not done it for the hell of it, then he must care—even if he never actually said that he did.
‘Then may I stay?’ she requested huskily. ‘Please?’
He made a jerky movement with his head that made her feel as if she’d hit him again. ‘You said one question,’ he gritted. ‘That makes two.’
So she rephrased it. ‘I’ll go if you want me to, but I prefer to stay. I need to stay here with you.’
‘And Melanie, of course,’ he cynically mocked.
Claire’s blue eyes flashed, glinting a warning at his hard profile. ‘Don’t bring Melanie into this,’ she admonished. ‘What is best for Melanie is a separate issue. I am talking about me here. My needs.’ She tersely pressed the point. ‘What I am going to do!’
‘And you want to stay,’ he drawled with crushing derision. ‘How very—saintly of you, considering who you would be staying with.’
‘Do you think that by mocking both me and yourself in the same sentence you will force me to hate you enough to leave without you having to tell me to go?’ she demanded.
‘I thought I had already done that,’ he remarked, saw her wince, and with a sigh relented in his acid tone a little. ‘Listen to me, Claire,’ he prompted heavily. ‘You are generous and loving and selflessly kind,’ he told her. ‘But you are also young and extremely beautiful. If you leave here now, you will soon pick up the threads of your own life, eventually meet a lucky man one day who will fulfil your heart’s desire in every single way. But I am not that man,’ he stated gruffly. ‘I am too old for you, too—flawed, and just too cynical for someone as fresh and perfect as you.’
‘But you aren’t saying that you wouldn’t like to be that lucky man,’ she said. ‘Only that you don’t think you can be him.’
His laugh was soft and rueful. ‘I forgot to say stubborn, too,’ he murmured—only to tag on harshly, ‘Why can’t you make this easier on both of us and accept that I am not going to let you stay with me?’
‘Because I love you,’ she replied. ‘Though I don’t think you deserve it. Or you couldn’t be trying to hurt me like this. And if you dare to quote the cruel to be kind thing at me,’ she added warningly, ‘I will probably hit you again—old man.’
‘Then I won’t say it,’ he promised. ‘But neither will I change my mind.’
He sounded so strong, so—resolved, her heart gave a painful little lurch in response to it. ‘So, if I get up right now and walk off into that darkness leaving Melanie behind—which is what you only ever really wanted—will that make you happy, Andreas? Will it?’
He didn’t answer, but she could feel the sharp increase in his tension. On impulse she stood up—could have wept when his hand snaked out to capture hers and he muttered, ‘No,’ so rawly that it rasped over his throat like sandpaper, and his grip was intense.
In a flurry of shaking limbs she spun around to come and squat down in front of him. Her hair had grown longer over the last couple of months, grown thicker and glossier so that even here, in the darkness of the terrace, it shone like golden syrup around the tense pallor of her face as she tried to capture his eyes. Only he wouldn’t let her do that—hadn’t, in fact, since he’d appeared in front of her tonight. And that made her hurt for him, because she understood why he would not meet her gaze.
It was wretched—utterly wretched.
‘OK,’ she murmured shakily. ‘New scenario—right?’ Her free hand went up, ice-cold and trembling fingertips touching the white ring of tension circling his mouth. ‘You meet a girl, you fall in love with her. You ask her to marry you. She turns round and tells you that she can’t have children. Do you just walk away, Andreas?’ she asked him gently. ‘Does the fact that she can’t give you children suddenly make her less worthy of your love?’
‘This is a senseless exercise,’ he gritted, dislodging her fingers with a tense movement of his head. ‘Simply because it is not the case here.’
‘How do you know?’ Claire challenged. ‘How can either you or I know whether I don’t have my own flaw that will stop me from conceiving? When it has never been put to the test?’
‘And never will be by me,’ he uttered grimly.
‘But that isn’t the point I was trying to make,’ she pressed. ‘Are you saying that when this fantastic new man comes along to sweep me off my feet I have to have him checked out to see if he’s fertile before I fall in love with him? And that he has to do the same with me?’
‘Don’t be foolish.’ He began to scowl. ‘And stop this line of argument right now. For I refuse to play mind games with ifs, buts and maybes. Why can’t you simply accept that I am not going to let you stay here with me?’
‘Then why are you holding so tightly to my hand?’ Claire countered softly.
His hand snapped away from her, his hard face darkening with a sudden loss of patience. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ he muttered, going to get up.
But Claire beat him to it. ‘So have I,’ she agreed, straightening away from him before he could stand up. ‘So I am going to go to my lonely bed to dream of wildly exciting men with very high sperm counts,’ she bitterly informed him. ‘And you never know—if I dream hard enough, by the time morning comes around, I may have managed to purge my love for you right out of me! Then leaving here tomorrow could well turn out to be a pleasure!’
With that she stalked into the house, leaving him sitting there alone with only his stubborn pride to help him mull over what she had just said.
On reaching her room, she stripped off her clothes and climbed into bed, closed her eyes and, with gritted teeth, waited to see if her angry words managed to shock a reaction out of him.
Sure enough, a couple of minutes later, the door to his own room slammed shut, and a few more minutes after that the connecting door flew open. Claire refused to open her eyes.
‘You asked for this,’ he growled, coming to lean over her. ‘You wanted to make me angry—well, I’m angry,’ he confirmed as his naked body slid between the sheets. ‘You wanted to make me jealous,’ he added as he reached out for her. ‘Well, I am damned well jealous!’
‘Of my dreams?’ she taunted, opening her eyes.
‘Of everything to do with you!’ he rasped, and imprisoned her very willing mouth.
It became a battle of wills as to who could arouse the other more. He kissed and licked and teased her, and shrouded her in the heaviest kind of sensuality. And she returned everything with interest, driving him out of control with the touch of her mouth and the caress of her fingers and the soft urgency with which she whispered her desire to him. ‘Will my other men make me feel as good as this?’ she dared to question curiously.
Her
