She stood up, discarding her cup onto its saucer with the same appearance of distaste. ‘Go to hell, Nicolas,’ she said, and walked out of the room.
The morning stretched out like an interminable wasteland in front of her, growing more difficult to bear the longer it went on without a single telephone ringing in the house. The silence grated. The sense of utter, wretched helplessness grated. The way everyone else seemed to be getting on with their normal business grated. And the burning fact that Nicolas had locked himself away in the study and not come out again grated. Because he should be right here by her side comforting and supporting her! Worrying with her! If he truly believed Lia to be his daughter would he be so calm and collected about it all? Would he be sitting in that damned study getting on with the day’s business while the people who had stolen their baby decided to make them sweat with this long, cruel silence?
In the end, she couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand any of it any longer. In an act of desperation she ran upstairs, dragged on an old pair of washed-out and skintight jeans and a T-shirt and ran downstairs again, busily tying a dark green cotton apron about her slender waist while trying to open the front door at the same time.
‘Can I help you, Mrs Santino?’ A big, burly bodyguard stepped out in front of her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ And she went to walk past him.
The big hand closing quite gently around her arm made her freeze. ‘Take your hand off me,’ she instructed him glacially.
A dark flush rushed into his face. But he maintained his grip on her arm. ‘I have instructions that you are not to—’
‘Nicolas!’ she shouted at the top of her voice.
Doors flew open all over the place—including the study door. Nicolas appeared in the hallway, his gaze sharp-eyed and questioning as he took in the little scene being enacted on the steps of the front porch.
‘Tell him,’ Sara breathed, barely enunciating because of the revulsion bubbling inside her, ‘to get his hands off me!’
Instead of obeying, Nicolas frowned. ‘What is this, Sara?’ he asked in genuine puzzlement. ‘You must know that none of my men mean you any harm—’
‘Tell him,’ she repeated, her quivering mouth ringed by a white line of tension. ‘Tell him right now!’
His face darkened, his walk as he came down the hall towards her a statement in itself. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like that, especially in front of his lackeys. And he did not like it that she was daring to do so now.
He flashed the guard a slicing look that had him abruptly letting go of her arm then melting away like ice on hot coals. ‘Right,’ he said shortly. ‘Would you like to tell me what that was all about?’
‘No,’ she replied, her face still tense with anger and disgust.
He wouldn’t understand if she did try to explain how no man—no man—would ever touch her again without her permission—not without her retaliating accordingly, anyway. She had learned that lesson the hard way, at Jason Castell’s hands. If she had screamed then, if she’d only had the sense to scream and shout and make loud protests, then Nicolas would have known she deserved his help and not his anger. And everything else would have been so different.
He sighed, his whole manner impatient. ‘Then would you like to tell me where you think you are going?’
‘Out,’ she said. ‘Or am I under some kind of house arrest?’ she then asked bitterly.
‘No.’ He denied that, but in a way that only helped to irk her further. ‘But I would have thought your daughter’s plight was more important to you than any appointment you may desire to keep.’
Sarcasm, dry and deriding. She responded to it like a match to dry wood. ‘Don’t you dare try telling me what should be important to me,’ she flashed, ‘when you have no understanding of the concept yourself!’
An eyebrow arched, black, sleek and threatening, golden eyes warning her to watch her step. ‘Where do you think you are going, Sara?’ he repeated smoothly.
‘I don’t think it, I know it!’ she asserted. ‘We still have the right of free will in this country in case you didn’t know it. I can go where I please without answering to anyone and that includes you and your damned henchmen!’
With that she turned, hair flying out in a silken fan of sun-kissed gold, the frustration that had been building up all morning culminating in that one furious movement.
His hand circling her wrist halted her mid-step, pulling her back round to face him. ‘Stop it,’ he commanded when she tried to tug free. His face was dark, its angles sharpened with anger. ‘Now try again,’ he suggested. ‘And this time come up with a suitable reply. Where do you think you are going?’ He enunciated it warningly.
She glared into his predator’s eyes, glared down at the place where his long fingers were crushing the bones in her slender wrist, felt the ready tears burst into her eyes and the frustration alter to despair. Felt horrid and frightened and useless and fed up and lonely and—
‘To help Mr Hobbit in the garden,’ she whispered thickly, and wilted like a rag doll. ‘Where else would I be going dressed like this?’
He should have recognised what she was wearing! He might hate the very sight of her, and he might have come to despise her lack of sophistication and good dress sense. But did he really think she would go out into the street dressed like this?
And he really should have recognised the apron as the same kind she always wore to work in the garden!
And it hurt—hurt like hell that he hadn’t.
He muttered something. What, she didn’t catch, because she was too busy fighting the onset of tears. Then the grip on her wrist slackened and she slid it free to lift it into her other hand where she rubbed at it pitiably.
‘Where are your gloves?’ he enquired gruffly.
So, he remembered that she usually wore gloves to protect her hands! One small tick in his favour, she thought sarcastically, and indicated with a half-nod of her bowed head towards the side of the house. ‘In the garden shed,’ she mumbled.
‘Come on, then.’ His arm coming to rest across her shoulders made her stiffen in rejection, but he ignored it. ‘Let’s go and find your gloves.’
She went with him simply because he gave her no choice, the arm remaining where it was as they walked together around the front of the house to the side where, cleverly concealed behind a high box hedge, the big garden shed stood with its door open to reveal the multitude of gardening implements held inside.
The moment they reached it, she went to move away from him, but he stopped her, the arm remaining firm as he twisted his body until he was standing in front of her. Then he reached out to pick up her wrist—the wrist he had used to pull her back towards him. His fingers were gentle as they ran over the tiny marks already promising to become bruises in the near future.
Sara kept her face lowered and didn’t even breathe. If she did breathe she would weep; she knew she would. She was feeling so raw at the moment that anything—anything—was likely to set her off.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I’m sorry if I overreacted. But you must understand that it is not safe for you to come outside without someone with you. And I am sorry for this.’ His thumb brushed a gentle caress over the fine veins in her wrist. ‘I forgot my own strength, and the delicacy of yours.’
‘Why isn’t it safe?’ she asked huskily.
He didn’t answer for a moment, then gave a small sigh. ‘We’re dealing with ruthless people here, Sara,’ he said grimly. ‘They will stop at nothing to get what they want.