Читать книгу Michelle Reid Collection - Michelle Reid - Страница 53

DEATH was a strange thing. It brought some people closer together and pushed others wide apart. In Claire’s own experience, she had lost more than a father when he’d passed away; she’d also lost lifelong friends who could not deal with the tragedy of the situation.

But when she stood beside Andreas as they buried his grandmother she found herself being drawn closer to the last person she would have expected, when Desmona suddenly broke down and began weeping so desperately that Claire didn’t think twice about going over and gently placing her arms around the other woman.

‘You were very kind to her, considering the circumstances,’ Andreas remarked much later as they were preparing for bed.

They shared a room now. They shared a life. Claire was even daring to think that they were sharing a marriage.

‘She needed someone,’ she answered simply. ‘It had never occurred to me until Desmona broke down like that that she and your grandmother must have been close.’

‘Desmona has been a member of this family for many years,’ he reminded her. ‘We all—care for her, though sometimes she makes it difficult to do so,’ he added dryly.

‘Is that why the family wanted you to marry her?’ she asked curiously. ‘Because they care for her?’

‘No.’ He laughed, a softly mocking, sexily husky sound that curled up her toes. ‘Wanting me to marry Desmona was an act of expediency. She owns rather large blocks of shares in some of our most lucrative companies and they wanted to keep them in the family.’

‘But she is in love with you,’ Claire pointed out. ‘Or why would she agree to marry you?’

‘Desmona loves Desmona,’ he murmured sardonically. ‘But she loves money even more. Marrying me would have given her relatively free access to the Markopoulou fortune once again. A very worthy cause in her eyes, believe me.’

‘You’re so cynical sometimes,’ Claire sighed.

‘Then reform me,’ he invited, and covered her mouth, effectively ending the discussion when other, far more important things demanded her attention: mainly this man, who had become the centre of her universe so quickly that she didn’t dare let herself consider just how deeply she had let herself fall in love with him.

So the next few weeks went drifting by without her giving a single thought to their original agreement. The plaster-cast came off her wrist, and with Andreas looking indulgently on, she celebrated by jumping fully clothed into the indoor swimming pool with a shriek of delight because she had been so looking forward to being able to do that. They visited London a couple of times to appear in front of an adoption panel who wanted to reassure themselves that they were, indeed, fit parents for Melanie.

But there was no problem there. For they were lovers. They were husband and wife. They were a couple in every sense of the word, which showed in the way they responded to each other.

Life was wonderful, life was great. Claire had never been so happy. And the only blot on her otherwise perfect existence was the way her aunt Laura still hadn’t bothered to get in touch with her.

‘I have to be in Paris for a few days from tomorrow,’ Andreas informed her one morning over the breakfast table. ‘Would you like to come with me?’

‘Yes!’ she agreed, thinking, Paris! The most romantic city in the world, and she was going to go there with the most wonderful man in the world. ‘Will my aunt be there?’ she questioned impulsively.

It was so many weeks since she’d watched his face close up that seeing it happen now came as a bad shock. ‘We will not discuss your aunt,’ he said coldly.

‘But why?’ Claire demanded. ‘Why are you so determined to keep the two of us apart? It isn’t as though she can hurt me, you know. I understand her better than you think I do.’

He got up from the table. ‘We will not discuss her,’ he repeated, and walked arrogantly away.

‘Then I’m not coming to Paris,’ she threw after him. Childish, she knew. Petty, she knew. But she felt childish and petty at that moment.

And Andreas responded accordingly—by not even faltering a single step in his retreat. She sulked for the rest of the day and he retaliated by treating her as if nothing was the matter. But when he reached for her in bed that night it was Claire who surrendered to a power much greater than her will to stand aloof from him.

The next morning she awoke to find him gone to Paris, and she felt so angry and hurt that he hadn’t once attempted to change her mind about going with him that she paid him back by telephoning her aunt’s London apartment. She got her answering service, which, Claire realised belatedly, she should have expected if Aunt Laura was in Paris with Andreas.

So she left a message asking her aunt to call her, then spent the next few days missing Andreas so badly that when he did arrive home she fell on him like a puppy dog who thought it had been deserted by its adored master.

A few more weeks went by. Melanie was changing fast now, becoming a real little personality with squeals and smiles, who liked to kick her legs on a blanket in the warm winter sunshine, as if her Mediterranean blood demanded it of her.

The day they received official notification that Melanie was now their legal daughter, Claire had also begun to suspect that she might be pregnant.

That evening Andreas took her out to celebrate. Decked out in one of her elegant evening gowns and with Andreas in dinner suit and bow-tie, they spent a wonderful evening dining at a very exclusive restaurant he knew in the hills behind Rafina, where they ate food that tasted like a dream and laughed and teased and talked a lot. And as they danced close together to music composed exclusively for lovers there was a point where Claire almost confided her suspicion that she could be pregnant. Only an unwillingness to overshadow the real reason why they were out celebrating like this stopped her.

Plus the fact that she wasn’t sure that she was just experiencing a small glitch in her usual smoothly running cycle.

But she was so happy. So lost in this all-encompassing love that she felt for this man of hers that by the time they drove home again that evening she was weaving delicious fantasies around the two of them that involved passionate declarations of love and a life spent making babies and growing old together. And she made love with him that night as if there were no tomorrow—sublimely unaware that, indeed, tomorrow was so very close.

The next morning, Nikos drove them into the busy sea port of Rafina. Claire had shopping to do and Andreas had several business appointments, so Nikos was to drive her back home when she was ready.

Andreas kissed her deeply before climbing out of the car and leaving her to Nikos’s indulgently smiling care.

‘You have made him very happy,’ he replied to the questioning look he caught her giving him via the rear-view mirror. ‘It is a delight to all of us who have known him for most of his life to see him like this again.’

He meant since the death of his first wife, Claire realised, and felt the tiniest suspicion of a cloud begin to shadow her little bit of clear blue sky. Then she firmly dismissed the sensation as she too clambered out of the car a few minutes later.

For this was now, not six years ago. The sun was shining. Life was great. And she wasn’t going to let anything spoil it!

With the confidence of youth and a determination that it was she, Claire, who counted in his life now, she went about her shopping with her metaphorical chin high and her shining blue eyes set clear ahead—just asking to be tripped up by someone or something.

It happened sooner rather than later, too. Unexpected and unprepared for it, she walked out of the chemist shop armed with her only purchase—and stopped dead in her tracks as she came face to face with her aunt.

‘Aunt Laura?’ she gasped in delighted surprise.

Dressed to her usual sharp, immaculate standard, Aunt Laura looked so thoroughly disconcerted to see Claire standing there that there was a heart-stopping moment when Claire actually suspected she was going to turn away as if she didn’t know her!

‘Aunt Laura? It’s me—Claire,’ she inserted hurriedly, feeling just a little stupid for declaring herself like that.

Her aunt must have thought so too, because her expression was derisive. ‘I know it’s you,’ she sighed. ‘I’m not blind.’

But she had been going to turn away from her; Claire was certain about that now. And it hurt. Hurt almost as much as the realisation that if her aunt was right here in Rafina, then Andreas knew about it but hadn’t bothered to tell her.

Her aunt was looking her over now, the derision more pronounced as her cool grey eyes took in the quality of Claire’s casual linen jacket worn with a simple straight skirt and skinny top that still managed to shriek designer at her.

‘Well, you certainly fell on your feet,’ she commented tightly. ‘You’ve caught yourself a rich man with a rich lifestyle—so who the hell can blame you for not caring if it is all just one big sham?’

‘It isn’t a sham,’ Claire denied, stunned by the bitterness filtering through her aunt’s voice. ‘We’re in love with each other.’

‘Love?’ Her aunt made a scoffing sound. ‘A man like Andreas Markopoulou doesn’t fall in love, Claire. He makes clear-cut, coldly calculating business decisions.’

‘Stop it,’ she responded, not understanding why her aunt was being so nasty. Besides Melanie, they were the only living relatives either of them had left in the world. Surely it had to count for something? But then, it never had before, had it? Claire reminded herself heavily. ‘Andreas is your boss,’ she said a little shakily. ‘I thought you admired and respected him.’

‘My—what?’ Aunt Laura gasped, staring at her niece as if she’d grown an extra head. ‘He isn’t my boss,’ she denied. ‘Where the hell did you get that idea from?’

It was like standing on the edge of a precipice; Claire felt a frightening tingling sensation slither through her body right down to her toes. ‘Don’t play games with me.’ She frowned. Why else would they bump into each other here, in Andreas’s home town of all places? ‘You were both on your way abroad on a business trip the first time I met him!’

‘Is that what he told you?’ Claire’s own confused expression gave her aunt the answer to that question, and she huffed out a tightly sardonic laugh. ‘You have to give it to the ruthless swine,’ she allowed. ‘He doesn’t miss a trick. Has he told you anything, Claire?’ she then asked cynically. ‘Or has the smooth, slick devil managed to con you into his life and into his bed, and get what he really wanted from you—which was really only ever Melanie—without having to let a single family skeleton out of the family closet?’

She fell off that precipice. Standing there beneath the Greek winter-blue sky and with her feet planted firmly on solid earth, she felt herself beginning to fall a long, long way into a cold, dark place as she heard herself whisper, ‘What are you talking about?’

Aunt Laura’s angry gaze shifted restlessly away as if she was trying to decide whether to say any more. Then she looked back at Claire—and her face hardened. ‘Why not?’ she decided. ‘He deserves his come-uppance, and I owe him one. So, come on…’ she urged. ‘Let’s find somewhere less public for this, because you’re in for a bad shock, and by the look of you it may be better if you receive it sitting down…’

Nikos kept sending her strange glances via his mirror as he drove her home. Claire didn’t really blame him for looking at her like that. For the bright-eyed, happy person he had dropped off at the shops only an hour before had gone, and in her place was someone else entirely: a sad, pale, haunted-looking creature he had once seen before, lying in a road after she had been knocked down.

‘Are you all right, kyria?’ he enquired concernedly.

Claire’s eyelashes flickered in an attempt to bring her glazed eyes into focus, but she wasn’t very successful. ‘Yes,’ she nodded, and tried to swallow the huge lump that was blocking her throat—she wasn’t very successful there either. ‘A small headache, that’s all. I’ll be fine once I get back and take something for it.’

But she wasn’t going to be fine. She knew it—and perhaps Nikos knew it, because she saw him lift his mobile phone to his ear and begin talking in Greek just before she shut herself away inside her own head again.

He was calling Andreas, she was sure. In a way she was glad. For the quicker Andreas was brought back to the house to find out what was the matter with her, the quicker she could leave it.

It wasn’t far from Rafina to the house. Fifteen minutes at most. As Nikos drew the car to a stop, Claire climbed out, walked in through the front door and up the stairs without so much as glancing sideways.

In her room—her room, not the one she had been sharing with Andreas for the last few months or so—she came to a stop in the middle of the carpet, then coldly and precisely began stripping off the casual but chic clothes she was wearing. Leaving them to lie where they fell, she then walked naked into the dressing room hung with the kind of clothes most women only dreamed of owning. When she came back out again a few minutes later, she was wearing her old jeans and a tee shirt. In her arms she carried the rest of the clothes that she had brought with her from London and never worn since.

Now she was shutting the door on the extravagant dressing room knowing that she would never be wearing a single garment in there again.

For he could pay through the teeth for the privilege of having Melanie for his daughter, but he would never pay for the privilege of having Claire again!

She heard a car come racing up the driveway as she placed the stack of clothes on the bed, ready for packing. It was Andreas, she was sure of it, though who he had got to bring him home she had no idea—nor cared. By the time he swung in through her bedroom door, she was just placing her rings in the little velvet jewellery box where she kept all of the things his grandmother had given her.

She didn’t bother to turn and look at him, but could sense him taking in at a glance the mound of discarded clothes on the floor and what she was now wearing. Only a fool would have missed the significance in the change, and Andreas was no fool.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Explain to me what this is about.’

‘I’m leaving,’ she said. Not, I’m leaving you, for she no longer acknowledged there was a him to leave. The man wasn’t human. He was cast from some hard, impenetrable metal that gave him the will to do unspeakable things just to get his own way.

She heard the bedroom door close as she was rummaging in the dressing-table drawers, picking out the bits that belonged to her and leaving behind the ones that no longer did.

‘Why?’ he asked quietly.

She didn’t answer—couldn’t. It was all stopped up inside her as if someone had ground a cork into a fizzing bottle. But what really bothered her was what would happen if that same person came along and shook the damned bottle.

‘Something happened in Rafina,’ he prompted when she didn’t say anything.

Naturally he would presume that because that was where she had been when she’d altered into a different person. Or went back to being the person she used to be, she corrected grimly.

‘You saw someone…’

She could feel his footsteps vibrate through the carpet as he came towards her. Her hands began to shake badly as she pulled open another drawer.

‘Desmona, perhaps. Has Desmona been stirring up trouble again, Claire?’ he demanded. ‘Is that what this is about?’

Try again, she thought bitterly. She picked up a framed photograph of her mother holding Melanie in her arms and made as if to edge round him.

His hand came out to touch her shoulder. ‘Claire…!’ he rasped out impatiently. ‘This is—’

The cork blew. In a fountain spout of bitter fury, she turned on him and let fly with her hand to the side of his wretched, deceiving face. ‘Don’t touch me ever again—do you hear?’ she spat at him.

His hand was already covering the side of his face where she’d stung him. He should have been angry—Claire would have preferred him to get angry so she could feed off it, build on what was bubbling up inside her.

But those black eyes of his just looked bewildered. And she couldn’t cope with that. ‘You lied to me,’ she accused him thickly. ‘Ever since the first day that we met you’ve lied and you’ve lied and you’ve lied…’

With that she managed to step around him. On trembling legs she walked across to the bed and placed her mother’s photograph on the stack of things already assembled there.

‘You’ve seen your aunt Laura,’ he realised belatedly. ‘I did wonder if there was a risk of that when she turned up at my office today.’

Claire said nothing. She just stood tautly, with a white-knuckled grip on each side of the photo frame, and let the silence grow to suffocating proportions.

‘What did she tell you?’ he asked eventually, sounding flat and weary, like someone who knew he had been exposed without the ability to defend himself.

‘She doesn’t even work for you,’ she whispered. ‘She never did.’

‘You made that assumption, Claire,’ he murmured. ‘All I did was allow you to go on thinking it.’

That was his defence? Claire didn’t think much of it, then.

‘But why?’ she demanded, spinning around to lash the question at him, and so hurt by her own wretched gullibility that she couldn’t keep it out of her voice. ‘Why should you want to deceive me and trick me and manipulate me like this—when the truth would probably have given you the same results?’

He released a heavy sigh. His hand fell away from the side of his face and as it did so Claire felt a tiny pinch of remorse when she saw the imprint of her fingers showing white against his olive skin.

‘I could not afford to take the risk that you would not fall in with my—plan,’ he answered.

‘Your plan to take Melanie away from me.’ She spelled it out clearly.

‘That was the original idea, yes.’ He freely admitted it. Then his eyes flicked her a searching look. ‘Your aunt told you about my brother and your mother?’

For an answer, she wrapped her arms around her slender body, her eyes closing as her mind replayed her aunt’s wretched story of her mother’s brief affair in Madrid with the hugely wealthy but very married fifty-year-old Greek merchant banker, Timo Markopoulou, which had resulted in Melanie.

‘I’m sorry,’ she heard him mutter.

What for? she wondered. For being responsible for making her feel like this, or was he apologising on behalf of his brother and her mother?

‘Did you know about their affair while it was happening?’ she whispered threadily.

‘I knew about an affair—yes,’ he confirmed, turning away from her to go and stare grimly out of the window. ‘But I did not know who the woman involved was,’ he went on. ‘Or the fact that she had borne him a child, until almost a year after Timo’s death and I was in London on business when your aunt came to see me.’

Claire’s eyes flicked open, the blue bright with a derision she speared at his profile. ‘You mean you went to see my aunt,’ she corrected him. ‘To get her to bargain with me for possession of Melanie!’

‘Is that what she said?’ His dark head turned. ‘Then she lied,’ he declared, holding her sceptical gaze with a grim demand that she believe him. ‘Your aunt Laura approached me, Claire,’ he insisted. ‘It was she who told me that my brother’s mistress had given birth to his daughter. It was she who wanted to bargain—not for Melanie,’ he made succinctly clear, ‘but for your silence about the affair. Your silence, Claire,’ he sombrely repeated. ‘Your aunt placed herself in the role of mere mediator between myself and her niece—the niece she swore had been my dead brother’s mistress!’

‘M-me?’ she stammered in shocked confusion. ‘My aunt told you that I was your brother’s mistress?’

Her sense of horror and dismay was obvious. Andreas acknowledged her right to feel like that with a tight-lipped grimace. ‘Apparently you were threatening to sell the story to the papers if I did not pay for your silence,’ he explained.

‘But how could you think such terrible things about me?’ Claire cried.

‘I had not met you then,’ he reminded her. ‘So I gained an impression of a grasping young woman who saw her child’s wealthy Greek relatives as a pushover for a bit of lucrative blackmail.’

It made a kind of sense. Claire felt sick suddenly. Sick with shame at her aunt’s mercenary cunning.

‘I could not afford to risk such a scandal breaking in the press when my grandmother was so frail,’ he continued, whilst, white as a sheet now, Claire stared blindly at the floor. ‘The one thing your aunt could not have known was my grandmother’s dream to hold her great-grandchild before she died. But it was only a dream,’ he sighed, turning back to the window. ‘Both she and I knew she didn’t have a chance of fulfilling it…’

He meant because his grandmother’s days had already been numbered, Claire realised sadly. ‘Learning about Melanie must have seemed like a heaven-sent opportunity, then.’

The dark head nodded. ‘I offered to take the child off your hands for a—certain amount of money,’ he told her. ‘Your aunt led me to believe that you would not be averse to the idea of giving up the burden of caring for Melanie—for the right price.’

Nice of her, Claire thought bitterly. The whole thing was a macabre circle of deceit, betrayal and greed, she acknowledged with a terrible shudder.

‘So you drove her over to my flat then sat outside it in your big limousine, and waited for her to buy your brother’s child for you,’ she concluded, beginning to feel more than a little sick now as the rest fell into place without needing to be dragged out and pawed over.

She’d come running out of her flat and got herself knocked over in front of him. He had then been given the opportunity to see where she lived and how she lived, and eventually learned that not only was she innocent of any charge of extortion, but that he would have a hell of a job convincing her to give her sister up to him!

So then came the next round of lies, she continued while he remained silently staring out of the window, perhaps doing the same as she, and replaying the whole thing scene by miserable scene! The proposition, the coercion, the sob story gauged to tug at her tender heartstrings about a grandmother who wanted to hold her only great-grandchild before she passed away.

The only bit of truth in among all the lies, she noted cynically.

‘Did your grandmother know whose child Melanie is?’ she asked huskily.

He didn’t answer for a moment, and there was something very—odd about his hesitation. It smacked at another lie on the way, Claire judged, eyeing him suspiciously.

‘She—guessed,’ he said in the end.

Truth or lie? Claire wondered. ‘You devil,’ his grandmother had said to him, she recalled, and got to her feet as an icy chill went washing through her.

What a waste of all his efforts, she mused acidly. For by then the wedding had taken place, otherwise he could have saved himself a whole lot of inconvenience. Then she remembered that Andreas had still needed to acquire legal control of his brother’s illegitimate child. So—not such a waste of his time.

‘Did you pay my aunt to keep away from me?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘The reason why she started this was because she had lost her job, was in a terrible amount of debt, and she saw me as a quick way to get herself out of trouble. But she then proceeded to lose the money trying to double it by speculating on the markets.’

‘So she came to your office today wanting more.’

‘I kicked her out,’ he stated flatly. ‘She took her revenge. I should have expected it—being a ruthless rat myself dealing with one of my kind.’

Which seemed to round it all off pretty well, Claire thought as the pain in her breast eased to a dull ache.

‘I never did any of this to hurt you, Claire,’ he murmured, as if he could sense what she was feeling. ‘Though you probably find it impossible to believe right now, I acted with your interests at heart also.’

It was impossible, she agreed. People who had your interests at heart did not lie, cheat and plot to steal from you.

‘Your aunt intended to give me Melanie, take the money and run,’ he told her. ‘I could not have done that to you,’ he added huskily. ‘I only had to know you for half an hour to realise I could not have done it. So I lied,’ he admitted. ‘I gave you what you seemed to need then, which was a reason worthy of you staying within my protection. Think about it,’ he urged. ‘When has anything I’ve done—lies or truth—actually been done to deliberately hurt you?’

Silence met that. The kind of silence that throbbed and pulled and prodded at the self-control she was having to exert over herself not to break down and cry all over him.

‘Stay,’ he fed gently into that silence. ‘Don’t let yourself be manoeuvred by a cold and embittered woman who has never done anything but hurt you…’

‘I can’t think straight,’ she whispered, pushing a hand up to her aching eyes. ‘I need time to come to terms with all of this before I make a decision as to whether I stay or go.’

Andreas seemed to draw himself up. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed, and his tone altered, cooled, and became businesslike. ‘Take your time,’ he invited. ‘There is no rush.’

With that he began to walk away. Making the tactical retreat, Claire recognised as she watched him with the tears already splitting her vision into a million fragmented parts.

Halfway to the door the toe of his shoe caught something that lay on the floor amongst the debris of her recently discarded clothes. Through the blur of tears she watched him pause and glance down, watched him go still for a moment before be bent to pick something up. It never occurred to her what that something was—until she heard the tearing of flimsy paper.

And, on a lightning shot of panic, she was galvanised into action, darting across the room in an effort to snatch the pregnancy testing kit out of his hands before he realised what it was he was looking at!

Too late. He spun to stare at her. Her heart sank to the soles of her feet. He’d gone white—perfectly, sickeningly white. ‘Why have you bought this?’ he demanded hoarsely.

He might be white, but Claire wasn’t; she was blushing like a schoolgirl. ‘Please give it to me,’ she insisted, holding out a badly trembling hand.

‘Why?’ he barked.

The sheer ferocity of it thoroughly shocked her. Her blue eyes widened in surprise, and she began backing away, cautiously—bewilderedly. Not understanding the need for this depth of anger.

‘Answer me,’ he commanded forcefully. ‘Answer me, Claire!’

‘I w-would have told you,’ she stammered shakily. ‘If—if it w-was positive.’ Was that why he was so angry—because he believed she’d intended to hide it from him? ‘I would have told you, Andreas!’ she repeated shrilly when he actually took a step towards her.

‘I want you out of this house,’ he hissed furiously at her. ‘Within the hour, do you hear me? I want you gone from my sight and I never want to see you again!’

‘But—why are you so angry?’ Claire shrilled, still backing while he paced towards her like a wild animal needing to taste fresh blood. ‘We haven’t used protection once in all the weeks we’ve been making love! Surely you must have considered this a strong possibility?’

‘And I used to get these damned things shoved in my face once a month by my first wife!’ he rasped. ‘For five hellish years, I used to listen to her sob her heart out once a month when the damn things told her what we both already knew! I am infertile, Claire!’ he raked rawly at her—watched her face blanch in shock, and tossed the packet aside in disgust.

The dreadful words held her still and shaking, confusion and horror warring for dominance on her face. ‘I know you said you never wanted children of your own,’ she whispered. ‘But…I feel pregnant, Andreas!’ she cried out pleadingly.

‘So did Sofia,’ he growled. ‘Every single wretched month.’

‘No…’ she breathed, refusing to take on board what he was saying here. ‘I’m not like her—I’m not!’ she insisted as those hard black eyes flicked her a contemptuous look. ‘I love you!’ she cried, saying the words out loud for the very first time in her desperation. ‘I couldn’t hurt you by playing on your feelings like that!’

‘Sofia loved me,’ he replied. ‘She worshipped the ground that I walked upon! She leaned on me—lived for me!’ A harshly grating sound of scornful laughter escaped him. ‘And in the end she even decided to put me out of my misery by killing herself in the name of love!’

That was six years ago, and he still has not recovered from what that final act of rank selfishness did to his soul, she realised.

She was so white in the face now that she began to look like marble. ‘I don’t want to believe all of this…’ she breathed as if in a crazed nightmare.

‘Then make yourself believe,’ he advised her coldly. ‘For I am infertile and this marriage is over. I will not be put through that kind of hell again—not for you—not for any woman,’ he concluded as he strode angrily for the door.

This time he passed through it without any hesitation. The door closed behind him, leaving Claire standing there, trembling from the top of her head to the soles of her feet as she tried desperately to come to terms with all the ugliness and horror that had been unveiled in this room today.

Infertile…

With her head turning on a neck that was too locked by stress to make the movement a smooth one, she stared dazedly at the flat packet now lying on the bed where he had tossed it. What to her had been a silly purchase made in the excitement of the moment was an instrument of torture to Andreas.

She shuddered, hating the very sight of it now, and was about to turn away from it in sickened distaste, when something he had said suddenly stilled her.

Make yourself believe, Andreas had said.

Make yourself believe…

Feeling her heart turn to stone in appalled dismay at what she was daring to consider, Claire picked up the packet.

The fierce roar of a car racing away from the house filled her head as she walked grimly into her bathroom.