He glanced up. Eve paused in the doorway. She had a towel wrapped around her hair and she was wearing the tee shirt. It covered her to halfway down her thighs and the short sleeves almost brushed her slender wrists.
She was wrong about the colour, he thought, quickly dropping his eyes away. ‘Tea?’ he offered.
‘I…Yes, please,’ she answered and, after a small hesitation that told him Eve was as uncomfortable with this situation as he was, she walked forward and took the chair next to the sofa. Having been told how she liked her tea, Ethan poured and offered her the mug then folded himself into the other chair. Neither spoke as they sipped, and the atmosphere was strained, to put it mildly. Eve was the first to attempt to ease it. Putting the cup down on the tray, she removed the towel from her hair and shook out its wet and tangled length. ‘Would you have a comb or something I could use?’
‘Sure.’ Glad of the excuse to move, he got up and found a comb. ‘Hair-dryer’s in the bathroom,’ he said as he handed over the comb.
She nodded in acknowledgement of something he suspected she already knew. He sat down again and she began combing the tangles out of her hair. It was all very domestic, very we-do-this-kind-of-thing-all-the-time. But nothing could have been further from the truth.
‘I’ll take the couch,’ she said.
‘No, you won’t,’ he countered. ‘I have my honour to protect. I take the couch.’
‘But—’
‘Not up for discussion,’ he cut in on her protest. One brief glance at his face and she was conceding the battle to him. Suddenly she looked utterly exhausted yet so uptight that the grip she had on his comb revealed shiny white knuckles.
‘Come on, you’ve had enough.’ Standing up again, he swung himself into action which felt better than sitting there feeling useless. Taking hold of her wrist, he tugged her to her feet, gently prized the comb from her fingers, and began trailing her towards the bedroom.
‘My hair…’ she prompted.
‘It won’t fall out if you leave it to dry by itself,’ was his sardonic answer. But really he knew he was rushing her like this because it was himself that had suddenly had enough. He needed some space that didn’t have Eve Herakleides in it. He needed to get a hold on what was churning up his insides.
And what was that? he asked himself. He refused to let himself look for the answer because he knew it was likely to make him as bad as that swine Aidan Galloway.
The bedroom was ready and waiting, its shadows softened by the gentle glow from the bedside lamp. He saw Eve glance at the bed, then at the room as a whole, and her nervous uncertainty almost screamed in this latest silence to develop between them.
‘You’re safe here, Eve,’ he grimly assured her, making that assurance on the back of his own sinful thoughts.
She nodded, slipped her wrist out of his grasp and took a couple of steps away. She looked so darn lost and anxious that he had to wonder if she was picking up on what his own tension was about.
Yet what did she do next? She floored him by suddenly spinning to face him. White-faced, big-eyed, small mouth trembling. ‘Will you stay?’ she burst out. ‘Just for a few minutes. I don’t want to be alone yet. I…’
The moment she’d said it, Eve was wishing the stupid words back. Just the expression on his face was enough to tell her she could not have appalled him more if she’d tried. Oh, damn, she thought and put a trembling hand up to cover her face. He didn’t even like her; hadn’t she always known that? Yet here she was almost begging him to sleep with her—or as good as.
‘Pretend I never said that,’ she retracted, turned away and even managed a couple more steps towards the wretched bed! She felt dizzy and confused and terribly disorientated—and she wished Raoul Delacroix had never been born!
The arm that reached round her to flip back the bed covers almost startled her out of her wits. ‘In,’ Ethan commanded.
In, like a child being put to bed by a stern father, she likened. In she got, curling onto her side like a child and let him settle the covers over her. When I leave here tomorrow I am never going to let myself set eyes on Ethan Hayes again! she vowed. ‘Goodnight,’ she made herself say.
‘Shut up,’ he returned and the next thing she knew he was stretching out beside her on top of the covers. ‘I’ll stay until you go to sleep,’ he announced.
‘You don’t have to,’ Eve responded with a hint of bite. ‘I changed my mind. I don’t—’ The way he turned on his side to face her was enough to push the rest of her words back down her throat.
‘Now listen to me, you aggravating little witch,’ he said huskily. ‘Any more provocation from you and I am likely to lose my temper. If you need me here, I’ll stay, if you want me to go, I’ll go. Your decision.’
Her decision. ‘Stay,’ she whispered.
Without another word he flopped onto his back and stared rigidly at the ceiling. Curled up at his side, Eve imagined his silent curses that were probably all very colourful ways of describing what he was feeling about this mess.
I’m sorry, she wanted to say, but she knew he didn’t want to hear that, so she did the next best thing she could think of and shut her eyes then willed herself to fall asleep.
Five minutes, Ethan was thinking grimly. I’ll give her five minutes to fall asleep then I’m out of here. With that, he took a look at his watch. Two o’clock.
A sigh whispered from her. Turning his head it wrenched at his heart
