Chloe?’ His voice dropped low, reverberating right through her. ‘Is that full of character too? Should I be grateful for the accident that blinded me?’
‘Maybe it sounds trite, but there are lots of people worse off than you.’ Chloe drew a slow breath, refusing to be cowed by his anger. ‘You have your health. You’re mobile. You have the satisfaction of running your own business. You have enough money to live in comfort. Millions of others aren’t that lucky.’
She spoke from experience. Her own foster father, Ted, had been an active, energetic man whom nothing could daunt. Now, still grieving the loss of his wife, he was confined to a rehabilitation clinic, recuperating slowly from the stroke that had immobilised one side of his body and robbed him of speech. And then there was Mark. His death at twenty-two had been fate at its cruellest.
‘You’re right,’ he snapped. ‘It does sound trite.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Not for speaking the truth, but that he obviously wasn’t ready to hear it.
His sightless eyes glittered with barely leashed emotion.
‘Do you have any idea how infuriating it is to be lectured about looking on the bright side? About how lucky I am? To have false hope of recovery held out like a holy grail?’
‘No.’ She stood stiffly.
‘No.’ His expression was grim. ‘How could you know?’
Abruptly he stood, making her shuffle a half-step into the corner to give him room. Still, he held her hand and she wondered if he’d forgotten it.
But then, with a sudden, unerring accuracy, he lifted their joined hands to her cheek. Together they stroked the contour of her cheekbone and her skin came alive at the incredible intimacy of their joined touch.
‘You’re whole,’ he said, so low it was like a vibration rather than a sound. ‘Your life hasn’t turned upside down so that everything you took for granted—everything—is now exponentially more difficult if not downright impossible.’
Their hands traced down to the corner of her mouth and a ripple of awareness shook her.
‘You’re not dogged by regret over what you couldn’t do, that you failed the one person who above all relied on you.’
He was talking about Adrian, she realised, and her heart squeezed. She wanted to tell him she knew the guilt that came with loss. She’d spent so long bedevilled by guilt because she hadn’t recognised the signs of meningitis early enough to save Mark.
But it was too soon for Declan to listen to reason. His fury was too fresh, too raw.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have stood up to him. He was still coming to grips with his changed lifestyle and his loss.
Suddenly he loosened his hold and let her hand fall. It tingled as blood rushed back.
Yet he didn’t move away. His tall frame crowded her into the corner, making her acutely aware of how her wayward body responded to him. Even tipping her head up to look into his face shot a tiny thrill through her.
He was her employer. Feelings of this sort were totally inappropriate.
That didn’t stop anticipation swirling through her.
His hand settled on her face, fingers spreading to mould her jaw.
Chloe sucked in a startled breath as he slid his hand over her, cupping her chin and circling her cheek almost as if he could picture her face through touch.
Each stroke reinforced the urgent, eager need for more. It was all she could do to stand still, not tilt her head into his hand.
Her response scared her.
With Mark there’d been fun, shared joy, respect. She couldn’t remember anything like the visceral urgency she felt when Declan Carstairs merely brushed his hand over her skin in the questing gesture of a blind man.
‘How old are you, Chloe Daniels?’ His voice hit that low, rich note that made something curl inside her.
‘Twenty-seven.’ She straightened and tilted her chin higher, only to find his hand dropping to her throat as if she’d invited his feather-light caress there.
Had she?
Whorls of lazy heat eddied at his touch and her head eased back.
She gulped, desperately trying to regain her composure. ‘How old are you?’
Long fingers stroked her lips, cajoling her into silence.
‘Thirty-four.’ His head tipped towards her as if, even blind, it was important that he look her in the eyes.
‘Thirty-four, blind and scarred. Not the man I was.’
His voice was an indictment, as if he saw himself as less a man than before.
He leaned towards her and her breath caught.
‘And you, Chloe, are smooth and young and unscarred.’ He paused while his hand traced her nose and returned with heart-stopping intent to her mouth. Her lips felt swollen and pulsing, as if waiting for more than the touch of his hand.
Fire sparked in her veins and she found herself straining towards him.
‘You’re whole,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m …’
He shook his head, his mouth grim, even as he framed her face with his fingers, letting them slide through her hair. Tremulous delight filled her at his gentle massaging pressure.
Then, with an abruptness that floored her, his hands dropped and he stepped back, his shoulders stiff, his face a forbidding mask not even the smear of shaving cream could humanise.
‘I don’t want you here.’
The statement, so simple, so unambiguous, stuck in her dazed mind as if he spoke in a foreign tongue.
When she didn’t move, his brow pleated in a ferocious scowl. His hands curled into tight fists.
‘Get out of here, Chloe.’ Words spat from him like bullets. ‘Now!’
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