the menu?’
Her expression fell. ‘Menu...?’
He arched a sardonic brow and watched the angry colour wash over the fair freckled skin.
She bit her lip. ‘Fergus, the chef, has gone home actually...’ She stopped. Was it such a good idea to tell this bad-tempered beautiful stranger with his indefinably menacing air that they were alone but for a baby lying asleep upstairs? Feeling ashamed of the sudden flurry of fear, she lifted her chin, squared her shoulders and added a very unconvincing, ‘Sorry.’
‘So your kitchen is closed?’ Of course it was. Ivo had stopped trying to imagine the urbane sophisticated brother he remembered living in this cold, misty, uninviting backwater. He sent up a silent apology to his grandfather, who he had assumed was guilty of over-exaggeration when he’d described the place his great-grandson needed rescuing from. Ivo no longer needed convincing.
From his expression she could see there was no five-star rating heading their way. ‘I could make you a sandwich?’ It wasn’t that she couldn’t cook, but Flora was intimidated by the restaurant’s industrial-looking catering kitchen with its shiny stainless-steel surfaces and latest top-of-the-range gadgets.
She didn’t ask for a translation of the sound he made in his throat, quite happy to take it as a rejection.
‘Right, then,’ she said briskly. ‘Shall I show you to your room? We’re having a little storm-related problem with the heating,’ she explained putting an awful lot of effort into the lie. It was glaringly obvious by his attitude that he didn’t actually believe a word she was saying. ‘But I’ll bring up an electric heater and you’ll be toasty in no time.’ She crossed her fingers while making the over-optimistic prediction. ‘If you’ll follow me?’
One foot on the bottom step of the staircase, she stopped as the fire chose that moment to belch a fresh flume of acrid smoke that filled the entire room. Flora stopped cursing long enough to cough. ‘The wind must be in the wrong direction,’ she excused hoarsely.
‘There is a right direction?’ he asked sardonically.
Before she could react to the sarcasm she was distracted by a sighing sound broadcast from the baby monitor, followed by a sleepy murmur.
Ivo watched as the redhead literally held her breath for a full thirty seconds before her tense shoulders sagged with visible relief.
‘YOU HAVE A CHILD?’
He watched the shock widen her eyes. Fascinated, Ivo observed the play of emotion across her fine-boned features. His fascination was mingled with disquiet that anyone could wear their emotions so close to the surface; the idea of exposing your vulnerabilities to the world the way she appeared to was anathema to Ivo.
When her reply came a moment or so later it was tinged with surprise underlain with a hint of defiance evident in the straightening of her slender shoulders.
‘Yes, that is my child.’
Flora had accepted the doctor’s verdict. It hadn’t been easy, and for a time she had been angry, but she had come to terms with the fact her endometriosis was so bad that her fertility was severely impaired.
She could have carried on being angry and bitter or hoped for a medical miracle. She supposed it was one of those events in life that everyone reacted to differently. Her way had been to accept what had happened, and save her energy for fights she could win, not lost causes.
That didn’t mean she hadn’t dreamt of saying those words...my child.
Ironic that when she got to say them it wasn’t because of a miracle or a dream-come-true scenario but because she was living a waking version of a nightmare Flora would have given everything she possessed not to be saying those words now, but when she did verbalising them brought home the full reality of the situation crashing in.
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