I tried that, she thought, I’d fall flat on my face.
‘You look feverish,’ he observed critically.
‘I’m not feverish. Anyone,’ she accused, ‘would think you wanted me to be ill.’ This time her laugh just stopped short of hysterical. ‘Well, if you’ve seen enough,’ she added, lifting her bottom from the seat and yanking the jeans upwards. The fabric caught against the injured area and she winced, tears of pain filling her eyes.
‘You’ll start it bleeding again, you little idiot,’ he said, catching hold of her hand.
The protest shrivelled on her tongue as Fleur stared at the long brown fingers curled around her own. She touched the tip of her tongue to her dry lips. Her heart was banging so hard against her ribs that he should have been able to hear it.
‘Besides, you need to get into dry clothes,’ he added, easing her jeans carefully back down to her ankles.
She looked at the top of his sleekly wet head, felt her pulses quicken and thought, What I need is for you not to be here.
‘Are you covered for tetanus?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
The admission earned her a scornful look, but Fleur barely noticed. She shifted restlessly in the chair, and pondered some more the worrying discovery that the lightest and most clinical touch of his brown fingers could make her ache deep inside. She looked at the dark shadow of his jaw and caught herself wondering how it would feel to be kissed by a man with stubble.
These were very dangerous thoughts for a girl who had sworn off men, but then Antonio Rochas, she reminded herself—it might sink in at some point—was a very dangerous man.
‘I should think you’ll need a few stitches and probably antibiotics.’
Great! Her day was complete. Stitches equated doctors and the hateful smell of hospitals. ‘No way.’
Impatience coloured his voice as he suggested laconically, ‘Shall we let the doctors decide that?’
His tone set her teeth on edge. ‘The women in your life may enjoy being patronized, but I don’t,’ she informed him tartly. ‘I mean it—I’m not going to the hospital.’ The last time she had lost her baby.
‘You would prefer to bleed to death, or be permanently scarred…?’ he suggested.
Fleur drew a shaky breath as she dragged herself back to the present. ‘I don’t care about scars.’ To a man to whom appearances probably meant everything this probably sounded strange. ‘I’ll stick a plaster on it.’
‘What about infection? Do you embrace that so joyously too?’ he wondered sarcastically. ‘That water was hardly a sterile environment.’
She peered down at the cut on her leg and was quite shocked by what she saw. ‘It looks worse than it is,’ she protested weakly.
‘You can wheel out as many clichés as you like, it’ll still need more than a sticking plaster.’
‘You really think it’ll need stitching…?’
‘I’m not a doctor, but, yes, I think so.’
‘Right.’
‘Is that a right you’ll stop being obstructive? Or a reference to my lack of medical credentials?’
Mutely Fleur nodded. ‘I’ll go…I’m not very…’ her eyes slid from his ‘…not terribly…I don’t like hospitals much.’
He looked at her keenly but only shrugged and said, ‘Who does?’
At that moment the housekeeper returned carrying a box, which Fleur presumed held the items he had requested.
She grimaced as she saw the gaping wound and said sympathetically, ‘Oh, my, that does look painful.’
‘Not really.’
‘Very stiff upper lip,’ Antonio interrupted. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Saunders, I’ll do it. Could you ask John to bring the Mercedes around to the front? We’ll go straight off to the hospital.’
With a smile in Fleur’s direction the woman excused herself.
‘I’d prefer you let your housekeeper do this,’ Fleur said as she watched him extract a dressing pad and some tape from the box.
‘Don’t worry, I can cope with a dry dressing. I’ll be gentle,’ he promised when she remained silent.
It wasn’t his level of competence she was concerned about, and what really worried her most was the suspicion he knew that.
Antonio was actually as proficient as he had claimed. In a matter of moments he had covered the area with a clean dry dressing and secured it with tape.
‘Fine, that’s done,’ he said, leaning back on his heels and surveying his handwork.
It was actually a bit of an anticlimax. She barely even needed to call on the breathing technique she had been taught in her yoga class.
‘Thanks,’ she said, getting to her feet. As she pulled up her wet jeans he walked over to the wardrobe.
‘Try this,’ he suggested, pulling something off a hanger and tossing it to her.
Fleur automatically caught it. It was a cotton tee shirt. A pair of trousers landed at her feet a moment later.
‘My sister’s. You can’t stay in those wet things.’
Only too aware of the wet fabric chafing her skin, Fleur could not disagree.
However, she made no attempt to pick them up—just stood there.
‘I can’t find any underclothes, I’m afraid.’ His narrowed eyes moved in a casual assessing sweep over her slim body. ‘And I doubt if Sophia’s would fit you anyway.’
Fleur’s response to his scrutiny was anything but casual. She felt a compulsion to cover herself with her hands, but instead she lifted her chin and stared at him with what she hoped passed for cool defiance.
It was Antonio who finally broke the nerve-shredding silence.
‘I suppose you expect me to turn my back…?’ he observed, sounding amused.
‘No, I expect you to leave the room,’ she retorted, trying to inject as much dignity into her words as a person who looked like a drowned rat could.
She didn’t expect him to comply with her edict. When he did she felt weak with relief.
The moment he was out of the room she began to tear off what remained of her sodden clothes. The possibility of him walking in when she was practically naked made her perform the task with feverish speed.
Fleur had just pulled the loose-fitting trousers, which were several inches too long, over her hips when she happened to catch a glimpse of herself in the full-length cheval-mirror. She stopped
