And so pleased with himself that she wanted to kick him. ‘Oh, that car…’
‘Yes, that car.’
His indulgent tone set her teeth on edge. ‘Right, well, I should be getting home. I have to pick up Sandy.’
‘Don’t bother. I’ll drop him over in the morning.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘I want to.’
His tone was far more forceful and emphatic than the subject warranted. Now if he’d been saying, I want you…
Trying to act as if she weren’t shaking feverishly and her body hadn’t been engulfed by a flash of heat, Fleur gave a shrug that suggested she didn’t care one way or the other and began to walk away.
She had gone a few yards when she looked back over her shoulder. ‘You’re really not that good a kisser, you know.’
‘You are.’
If he’d smiled it would have passed as a joke, but he didn’t smile.
Hunching her shoulders, Fleur almost ran down the path, oblivious to the pain in her leg. Clearly he was a man who had to have the last word…The alternative was, well, actually, the alternative was plain ridiculous.
Chapter Eight
FLEUR dumped the bowl of blackberries she had just picked from the hedge on the drainer and, pausing only to kick off her Wellingtons, hurried to answer the door.
Smoothing down her hair, she opened the door. ‘Sorry, I was in the garden…’ She stopped, her eyes widening as she identified her visitor. ‘Hello…Tamara, isn’t it?’
Two days after the near-death lake drama and not wet or nearly dead the youngster was revealed as tall and slender with the makings of real beauty in the stunning bones of her softly youthful face and big liquid brown fawn-like eyes.
Just as Fleur had predicted, in a couple of years when those awkward coltish angles softened and the curves filled out Antonio was going to have a whole new set of problems, she reflected, unable to repress an uncharitable smile at the thought.
‘He said I had to come and thank you…’ Looking resentful as only a teenager could, she gestured towards the lane.
Fleur registered the Range Rover, then the outline of a figure in the driver’s seat, and tensed.
‘Like I wasn’t going to say thank you anyway,’ the girl added with a sarcastic sniff. ‘He didn’t have to tell me to.’
‘Would you like to come in?’ Fleur asked, knowing when not to offer an opinion. It wasn’t as though Antonio would thank her for speaking up for him. Antonio who had sent his daughter but not come himself. She would be well within her rights to march up to that car and demand the explanation she deserved!
She didn’t, because that would make him think she gave a damn whether or not he kept his promises.
Her glance flickered covertly towards the parked vehicle. For someone, she mused, who apparently put such great store by good manners, his could do with some work!
Was he sitting out there because he was afraid that she would want to take up where they had left off, which, now she came to think about it, was nowhere. Whatever the reason, he needn’t have worried—she had received the message loud and clear when one of the female gardeners had brought Sandy back the next morning.
Fleur had had no problem translating, ‘To save you the bother of calling for him,’ as, ‘You’ve got no excuse to come calling at the big house now.’ It was clear to her that he considered that kiss a massive lapse of judgement and not a lapse he felt inclined to repeat in the cold light of day.
And neither did she.
Tamara looked curiously past Fleur into the cottage, but shook her head. ‘I’d better not. He’s in a hurry.’
‘Some other time, maybe, and I’m glad you’re feeling better,’ Fleur said.
‘Thanks to you.’ The words were minus the sulky tones that had laced the conversation to this point.
‘You’re welcome,’ Fleur replied cheerfully. ‘But I didn’t actually have much to do with saving you,’ she admitted.
The girl frowned and in the process looked remarkably like a softer version of her father. ‘But…’
‘That was your father,’ Fleur inserted. ‘But then I’m sure you already know that.’ The girl’s expressive face was a fair indication that she knew nothing of the sort, but, pretending not to notice, Fleur added, ‘When he dived down for that last time…’ She closed her eyes, a shudder running through her body as without warning she was back there staring at the still water…waiting and praying.
‘I really thought he wasn’t coming back up…’ She didn’t have to pretend the husky emotion in her voice as her thoughts returned to that awful moment.
Then exhaling a gusty sigh and rubbing her arms, which were covered in a rash of goose-flesh, she lifted her eyes. The astonishment chasing across the youthful features of Antonio’s daughter was almost comical. Clearly this was the first time the girl had realised that the man she claimed to loathe had risked his life for her.
‘Well, he wasn’t, was he? Coming back up, that is—not without you, at any rate.’
Tamara stared at Fleur. ‘But he doesn’t even want me.’
‘Then he has a funny way of showing it.’
‘It’s only a matter of time before he sends me back.’ Fleur could hear the flicker of uncertainty mingled with despair in the young voice.
Her own expression was sympathetic as she suggested, ‘And you think acting like the teenager from hell will speed up the process? Have you thought about being nice, talking to him, telling him how unhappy you are?’
The girl’s brows knit in a frown as she insisted, ‘He doesn’t care about me.’
‘Has he said that?’
‘He doesn’t have to. It’s obvious,’ the youngster retorted defensively. ‘It would have solved his problem if I’d drowned.’
Fleur watched her eyes fill with tears and told herself that the smart thing to do would be to say nothing. Getting involved with the Rochas family was the last thing she wanted to do. She would get no thanks and if anything went wrong—a more-than-likely scenario—she’d be the first person he’d blame.
‘And I suppose you told him that.’ So much for not getting involved, Fleur.
The girl lifted her chin defiantly and shrugged. ‘He didn’t deny it.’
As bad as her father, Fleur thought, stifling a sigh as she studied the stubborn set of the girl’s jaw. ‘Well, he wouldn’t, would he? Not when he’s got that whole macho, man-of-steel-never-explain-yourself-to-anyone thing going on.’
The waspishly exasperated retort drew a reluctant chuckle from the girl. Pausing halfway up the path and unashamedly eavesdropping, Antonio paused. It was the first time he had heard his daughter laugh.
‘Don’t you like him?’
Fleur, surprised by the question, considered it.
‘Your father isn’t the sort of person that people like.’ Like was a tepid term and nothing about Antonio was tepid. She thought about his mouth and the way her insides dissolved when she looked at it and said, ‘He’s the sort of person people love or loathe.’
‘Which camp do you fall into, Fleur?’
The colour flew darkly to Fleur’s cheeks as a tall figure moved