The back of his neck prickled in anger. So this was how she was going to repay his mother for her kindness, was it?
‘What were you doing downstairs at this time of night?’
The pink in her cheeks went a shade darker but her eyes remained diamond-hard. ‘I was getting a drink.’
His gaze briefly went to the milk on the bench. ‘Is that all?’ he asked.
Her brows snapped together and the pink in her cheeks turned red. Angry red. Defensive red. ‘What do you mean, “Is that all?” What—do you think I’m pilfering the silver while you sleep?’ Her eyes flashed at him, her mouth flattening in a whitened line. ‘Why don’t you check each drawer to see if I’ve pinched any of your precious heirlooms?’
She started marching about the kitchen like an angry cop armed with a long-awaited search warrant. Opening cupboards wildly, banging doors, pulling out drawers with savage jerks of her hands. There was an air of mania about her. Of hysteria about to erupt. She pulled open the silverware drawer of the oak sideboard so quickly the contents landed in a clattering, deafening heap on the floor.
She stood looking at the jumbled mess of his mother’s silverware in frozen silence.
And then, right in front of his eyes, she started to crack. It was like watching an ice sculpture fracture, centimetre by centimetre. Her eyes darted and flickered. Her tongue dashed out over her lips. Her stiff angry posture faltered. Her shoulders trembled. Her torso folded. ‘I’m sorry...’ She swallowed and dropped to her knees and began to reach for the silverware but he could see her hands were shaking almost uncontrollably and she barely managed to pick up a teaspoon before it dropped with a ping to the floor.
He crouched down beside her and put a hand over her trembling one. ‘Leave it.’
Her eyes were trained on his chin as if she couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze, but her tone was resentful and snarly. ‘Don’t you want to count them?’
Something about her attempt to sound defiant when she was clearly so upset touched him. Ambushed him. She reminded him of a kitten puffing its fur up to look tough against a big scary dog. ‘It can wait.’ He searched her expression for a moment. ‘Hey, are you OK?’
There was a whining at the back door and Aiesha’s mask slipped back on like a glove. ‘You’d better get that. Can’t have your mother’s dog carking it while she’s under your protection, can you?’
It only took James five seconds to let the dog in but when he turned around Aiesha had disappeared.
* * *
Aiesha leant heavily on her bedroom door with bated breath, waiting for the sound of James’s footsteps along the passage. Her heart thudded as each long second passed. What was he thinking of her after that crazy little show? What was he thinking of her brash attitude now she had let it slip? He had seen her at her worst. Out of control. Panicked. Upset. Vulnerable. She had lost it in front of him. She’d acted like some screwed-up nut job, throwing the contents of the kitchen around like one of her creepy mother’s boyfriends in a drunken tantrum.
Would he mock her? Laugh at her?
Or, worse, would he try and understand her? Know her?
Aiesha thought of telling him...of finally being able to share some of the pain she carried like toxic waste in her bones. The shame of her childhood, the sense of being an outsider, the one no one wanted. The crushing weight of guilt she felt about not being able to protect her mother and Archie. The niggling despair that she might never be able to get her life on track. To reach her potential instead of being stymied by her past. How would James react to finding out she was not as tough as she made everyone think? That, underneath the brash facade, she was as sensitive and caring as his mother? Maybe even more so...
She heard the stairs creak as he came up them. She heard each of his footsteps, unhurried, steady and sure. She heard him pause outside her bedroom door. Heard the deep gravel-rough baritone of his voice. ‘Aiesha?’
She clamped her teeth together to stop from calling out to him. She didn’t need his comfort. She didn’t need anyone’s comfort. She had been on her own for the last ten years—for most of her life—and that was the way it was going to stay. So what if she’d got a little panicked over losing the dog in the dark? Big deal. The dog came back. No harm done.
The silence stretched and stretched and stretched along with her held breath. Aiesha wasn’t sure which would break first—the silence or her lungs.
‘Can we talk?’ James said.
She clenched her hands into tight balls of self-containment. No. Go away.