He clearly hadn’t done either, which reinforced the obvious: it had been an opportunist offer, made in the heat of the moment, and when she’d refused he had chalked it up to experience and moved on.
A circumstance she told herself she was relieved about.
‘Uncle Nik would understand...he wouldn’t lecture me,’ the girl said, her defiant expression suggesting that Chloe couldn’t even begin to do so.
In contrast to the girl’s dramatic pronouncement Chloe kept her voice light and friendly. ‘I’m not here to lecture you,’ she returned, thinking, Thank God, it’s not my job. ‘Just get you to your mum.’
The girl pouted and tossed her head. ‘Well, you took your time.’
Chloe smiled and counted to ten. ‘Yes, I thought I’d take the scenic route as it’s such a lovely day for a drive.’ She gestured to the window, where the rain was falling from a leaden summer sky. ‘And obviously I had nothing better to do.’ Without waiting for the girl’s response, she turned to the policewoman. ‘Thank you very much for looking after her.’ She glanced at Eugenie. ‘Ready...?’
The girl nodded. Minus the truculent attitude, she looked so miserable and very young standing there shifting her weight from one spiky heel to the other that it was all Chloe could do not to hug her.
Instead she slipped off her jacket and draped it over the girl’s bare shoulders. ‘It’s a bit chilly out there.’
Eugenie turned her head to look up at Chloe. ‘Is she really mad? Mum, I mean?’ she muttered.
‘I’m afraid I’m just the chauffeur.’ Chloe hesitated, choosing her words with care. ‘I’ve zero experience of being a parent, but I have been a daughter and when my parents were angry with me it was usually because they were worried about me.’
‘There was no reason for her to be worried.’
‘If you say so.’
‘You don’t believe me, do you?’
‘I’m parked just over there.’
‘Uncle Nik would believe me—he’d understand.’
Well, bully for Uncle Nik,Chloe thought, keeping her lips sealed over her resentment. Uncle Nik, who would no doubt have beautiful babies, and was, as far as she knew, somewhere right now trying to make one.
She frowned, rubbing her upper arms through the silk of her already drenched blouse, and pushed the accompanying image away. Wherever he was too busy to pick up his phone, it was bound to be some place nice and warm while she was drenched to the skin and walking on eggshells with a teenager who made her feel about ninety!
Just as she was on the point of deciding that parenthood was clearly a mug’s game, her sulky charge stopped. Impatient, Chloe turned back.
‘Thank you for coming for me,’ Eugenie said in a small quivery voice.
‘You are very welcome.’
Chloe fished her keys from her pocket and opened the passenger door of her own utilitarian hatchback. ‘Sorry you’re slumming it today.’
‘That is your car?’ The girl’s astonishment was almost comical, as was her horror. Chloe strongly suspected that the idea of being seen in anything so uncool worried her more than the idea of parental ire or a jail cell.
‘So what does it do, thirty with the wind behind it?’
‘If we’re lucky.’ Speed had not been a priority when she had first got behind the wheel of a car after the accident, but safety had. Not that she expected the girl, or anyone else for that matter, to understand that this car represented a personal triumph for Chloe.
She could have rationalised it and it would have been easier than admitting her fears. Far easier to pretend that she was doing her eco bit for the planet by using public transport, asking how convenient actually was it to have a car in the City?
Instead she had admitted she had a problem, and her family had been proud when she had conquered her fears, but the truth was her honesty had certain limitations. She’d never told them that her hands still got clammy when she slid into the driver’s seat and her heart rate took a few minutes before it settled into a normal rhythm.
Time, she hoped, would eventually finish the healing process.
‘I thought you were meant to be royal or something...’
‘Or something,’ Chloe admitted with a laugh. ‘You can always duck down if you see anyone you know—’
The sound of a car that was neither safe nor slow made them both turn as a limousine complete with blacked-out windows drew up behind them.