* * *
Draco couldn’t take his eyes off Eve. There had been moments when he had pictured her pining for him, regretting sending him away. But if she had been missing him it didn’t show. Of course the day had left lines of strain around her lovely eyes and soft purple bruises under her eyes but her skin was glowing with health and her magnificent hair was gleaming and glossy.
The feelings Eve had been holding inside for weeks threatened to burst out. She wanted to tell him about the baby, but she tightened her control. This was not the time or place and he was only here because somehow Hannah, from her palace, had asked him to come.
‘Have you seen Charlie?’ It was odd to be worrying about someone who for so long had been the focus of her loathing, but she was. She had never really believed that Charles Latimer truly cared for her mother, but the first words he had said to the doctors had been, My wife…whatever it takes, please save my wife.
He’d said the same thing over and over and he was still with her right now rather than standing over his heir.
Draco shook his head. ‘No, I haven’t.’
‘This is very hard for him.’ Fear, she learnt, made her stepfather loud and aggressive, and it was a miracle he had not alienated the people who were trying to help Sarah with his accusations of negligence and dire threats of litigation if she didn’t survive.
Eve had had to control her own fear in order to calm him down, and when she’d succeeded his tears and remorse had been in many ways more difficult to cope with than what had preceded them.
‘I missed you too.’
The husky words made her eyes fly to his face. If you miss me so much, she wanted to say, why the hell did you go away and not come back? Instead she bit her lip and asked, ‘Is Hannah all right?’
‘I didn’t speak to her.’
Eve suppressed a genuine sigh of relief. When Hannah had rung last, Eve had been feeling particularly emotional and Hannah, who could be quietly persistent, had pushed until the whole story had come tumbling out. It was very possible, she realised guiltily, that her friend had gained quite a one-sided version of the situation.
‘Kamel rang and he gave me quite a talking-to. He says she is frantic about you all and very frustrated that she can’t be here with you.’
‘I don’t know why they rang you. You didn’t have to come.’
The expression in his dark eyes was tender as he brushed a strand of hair from her face. ‘We both know that’s not true.’
She stared at him for a long moment and then without a word looked away and retook her seat by the cot, her expression dismissive, her body language distracted.
Typical mixed messages he thought, his scrutiny moving from her remote profile to her fluttery hands. His jaw clenched in frustration. He didn’t know what response he had expected but anything would have been better than this silence.
Had he not been clear enough?
Did she want him to crawl?
What did she expect?
Maybe a bit of humility?
As quickly as it had erupted his frustrated anger faded. The fact was he would do whatever it took to get Eve back…and, admittedly, his timing was bloody awful.