‘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 wa
nt 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 to see the trace of tears still staining her cheeks. She had just endured a close encounter with what had to be a woman’s worst nightmare and here he was putting a time limit on how long he was going to support her through the rest of this.
A sigh whispered from him. Eve liked the sigh. She liked the comfort she gained from hearing his closeness and the sure knowledge that if she was safe anywhere then it had to be right here with him.
Tomorrow was destined to be another thing entirely. By tomorrow, she predicted, it would be back to hostilities, with him backing off whenever she threatened to come close. But, for now, she was content to think of him as her guardian angel, and on that comforting thought she let herself relax into sleep.
Another five minutes, Ethan decided. She’d relaxed at last and her breathing was steady. He would give her another five minutes to slip into a deep slumber, then he would swap the comfort of the bed for the discomfort of the living-room couch.
His eyelids began to droop; he dragged them back up again and captured a yawn on the back of his hand. Eve moved and mumbled something, it sounded like, ‘Don’t.’ He tagged on another five minutes because the last thing he wanted was for her to wake up in a strange bed alone and frightened. Another five minutes wouldn’t kill him, would it?
Eve came thrashing up from a deep dark sleep to that halfway place where haunted dream mixed with confusing reality. A sound had disturbed her, though she wasn’t sure what it had represented, only that it had made her pulse accelerate and had pushed up her eyelids so she found herself staring directly into the sleeping face of Ethan Hayes. He was lying kiss-close to her on the same pillow with his arms and legs wrapped warmly around her—or were her limbs wrapped around him? She didn’t have time to consider the puzzle because the sound came again and even as she lifted her head off the pillow she was aware that Ethan was now awake also. They turned together to look towards the open bedroom doorway, then froze on a heart-stopping clutch of stunning dismay.
Theron Herakleides stood filling the doorway, looking like his favourite god, Zeus, with his thickly curling grey locks framing a rough, tough, lived-in face that was clearly preparing to cast thunderbolts down on their heads.
‘Grandpa,’ Eve only managed on a strangled whisper. Ethan hissed out a couple of quick curses beneath his breath. The old man flicked devil-to-pay black eyes from one to the other and conjured up an image of themselves, which showed them what he was seeing. It was so utterly damning neither found the ability to speak in their own defence.
Theron did it for them when hard as rock, he threw his first thunderbolt. ‘One hour, in my study at the main house,’ he instructed. ‘I will expect you both there.’
Then he was gone, leaving them lying there in a tangle of limbs and white bedding, feeling as culpable as a pair of guilty lovers who’d been caught red-handed in the act of sex.
‘Oh, dear God.’ Eve found her voice first, groaning out the words as she fell back heavily against the bed.
Ethan went one stage further and snaked his legs free of the tangle then landed on his feet beside the bed. He did not want to believe that any of this was really happening.
‘How did you get here?’ Eve had the absolute stupidity to ask him.
‘How did I get here?’ Ethan swung round to lance at her. ‘This is my bed!’
They’d both reacted on pure instinct. Now reality hit, clearing away the last muddy remnants of sleep. Eve began to remember. Ethan watched it happen in a slide-frame flicker, as she passed through last night’s ordeal to this morning’s shocked horror. She went as pale as alabaster, clamped a hand across her trembling mouth, and just stared at him through huge dark nightmare-ridden eyes that turned his insides into a raging inferno of anger and gave him a desire to break someone’s neck.
His own at the moment, he acknowledged grimly, and released the air from his lungs on a pressured hiss. ‘My fault,’ he conceded. ‘I fell asleep. I’ll go and talk to him.’
Decision set in his mind, he was already turning towards the door when Eve’s half hysterical, ‘No!’ hit his ears. ‘He won’t believe you. I have to do it!’ She began scrambling shakily to the edge of the bed. All long limbs, flying hair and utterly shattered composure, she landed on her feet beside him and began searching the floor.
‘Shoes,’ she mumbled anxiously.
‘You didn’t come in shoes. I carried you, remember?’
The hand was at her mouth again as a second barrage of memories came flooding in. No shoes, no clothes; Ethan was seeing it all with her. He was also seeing another bed that had looked not unlike this one, with its covers lying in the same damning tangle, half on the floor half on the bed.
Had Theron Herakleides seen that other bed too? His skin began to prickle as he began to fully appreciate what the older man had to believe from the evidence. A passionate interlude spent in his granddaughter’s bed before they’d transferred to this one to repeat the whole orgy all over again.
The air left his lungs on yet another hard hiss. This whole mad scenario was going to take some serious explaining. ‘I’ll do the explaining,’ he grimly insisted. ‘You can stay here while I—’