A thick and uncomfortable silence settled between them. Clutching the sheet to her throat, Eve tried to think of something to say to break through the awkward atmosphere. Ethan tried to break it by taking off round the room to switch on the table lamps.
The light hurt her eyes, forcing her to squeeze them shut. He noticed. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t think—’
‘It’s okay.’ She made herself open them again. She didn’t look at him though—she couldn’t. Instead she made a play of checking out her surroundings—surroundings she already knew as well as she knew her own, because she had been in and out of the Petronades beach house since early childhood.
‘Bedroom through that door, bathroom the other…’
She looked and nodded. Her mouth felt paper dry.
‘Would you like a drink? Something hot like tea or coffee?’ 49
Yes—no, Eve thought in tense confusion. Her head was beginning to pound, a sense of disorientation washing over her in ever increasing waves. She felt strange, out of place and—
‘This was a mistake,’ she pushed out thickly. ‘I think I had better—’
One small step in the direction of the front door was all that it took for the whole wretched nightmare to come crashing back down upon her head. She swayed dizzily, felt her legs turn back to rubber; she knew she was going to do something stupid like drop to the floor in a tent of white sheeting.
Only it never happened, because he was already at her side and catching hold of her arms to steady her. She was trembling so badly her teeth actually chattered.
‘Are you frightened of being alone here with me, or is this a delayed shock reaction?’ he questioned soberly.
Both, Eve thought. ‘Sh-shock, I think,’ was the answer she gave out loud. Then she confessed to him shakily, ‘Ethan, I really need to sit down.’
‘What you need is a doctor,’ he clipped back tautly.
‘No,’ she refused.
Sighing at her stubbornness. ‘Bed, then,’ he insisted. ‘You can at least sleep off the effects there.’
He was about to lift her back into his arms when Eve stopped him. ‘W-what I would really love to do is take a shower,’ she told him. ‘W-wash his touch from my skin…’
There was another one of those tense pauses. ‘Eve, he didn’t—?’
‘No,’ she put in quickly. ‘He didn’t.’ But the tremors became shudders, and neither of them bothered to question why she was suddenly shuddering so badly.
‘The bathroom it is, then,’ he said briskly, and the next thing she knew Eve was being lifted into his arms again and carried into the bathroom. He set her down on the lowered toilet seat, then turned to switch on the shower. ‘Stay right there,’ he instructed then as he was disappearing through the door.
His departure gave Eve the opportunity to sag weakly. He was back in seconds, though, forcing her to straighten her backbone before he caught her looking so darn pathetic.
‘Fresh towels,’ he announced, settling them on the washbasin. ‘And a tee shirt of mine.’ He placed it on her lap. ‘I thought it might be more comfortable to wear than the sheet.’
It was an attempt to lighten the thick atmosphere with humour, Eve recognised, and did her best to rise to it. ‘White was never my colour,’ she murmured, referring to the sheet.
The tee shirt was white. They both stared down at it. It was such a stupid, mild, incidental little error that certainly did not warrant the flood of hot tears it produced. Ethan saw them—of course he did—when had he missed a single thing since he’d barged into her bedroom?
He came to squat down in front of her. ‘Hey,’ he murmured gently. ‘It’s okay. I am not offended that you don’t like my tee shirt.’
But she did like it. She liked every single thing about this man, every single thing he had done for her. And the worst of it was that he had done it all even though he actively disliked her! ‘I’m so very sorry for dumping on you like this.’ The sheet was covering her face again.
‘I thought we’d agreed that you were not going to apologise,’ he reminded her.
‘But I feel so wretched, and I know you have to be hating this.’
‘I hate what happened to you to put us both in this situation,’ he tempered. ‘And the rest I think is best left until tomorrow when you should be feeling more able to cope.’
He was right. Eve nodded. ‘I’ll take that shower now,’ she said bracingly.
‘You will be okay on your own? You won’t fall over or—?’
‘I’ll be okay.’ She nodded.
He didn’t look too sure about that. His eyebrows were touching across the bridge of his nose as he studied her, and his eyes were no longer steely but dark and deep with genuine worry and concern. Could she ever look more pathetic than this? Eve wondered tragically. And did it have to be Ethan Hayes who witnessed it?
The sheet was used as a handkerchief again, and they weren’t her fingers that lifted it to wipe the tears from her cheeks, they were his gentle fingers. The caring act was almost her complete undoing.
‘I’ll be fine!’ she promised in near desperation. Any second now she was going to throw herself at him again if she didn’t get him out of here! ‘Please go, Ethan—please,’ she repeated plaintively.
Maybe he knew because he rose up to his full height. ‘Don’t lock the door,’ was his final comment. ‘And if you need me, shout.’
But Eve didn’t shout, and while he waited for her to reappear, Ethan prowled the place. He was like a pacing tiger guarding his territory—he likened his own tense and restless state. In the end he put his restless energy to use and tidied the bedroom, remade the bed and, as a belated thought, pulled another clean tee shirt out of the drawer and slid it over his head,
