.
gesture. ‘Mum booked us in there. She’s dropping off my bag on her way home, I think.’
His mouth thinned into a critical line. ‘That hardly seems ideal.’
‘This situation is not ideal!’ she flared bitterly, then tacked on a weary, ‘Sorry.’ Immediately regretting venting her anger and frustration at him—she didn’t blame him, he was just there.
Were there couples whose relationships were casualties of a situation like this? she wondered. Were there bleak statistics out there to confirm it? Well, one thing they couldn’t become was a statistic. They weren’t a couple; they were already apart.
Suddenly very cold, she gave a shiver.
‘Do you want to go in?’
She gave an absent nod, tucking her hair behind her ears as she tilted her head to look up at him. ‘They are very good here. They try their best. The unit has a purpose-built apartment block for parents and families, but it’s vastly oversubscribed and pretty much on a first-come-first-served basis. Anyway I actually prefer to sleep in the chair by Emmy at the moment—just in case...’ She gulped, her eyes falling from his, but not before he had seen the terror she struggled to ignore.
He fought against the instinct to offer her comfort. ‘I understand.’
Bracing her shoulders, she exhaled a gusty sigh. Her voice no longer quivered and was firm with conviction as she said, ‘She’ll be all right. I know she will. It was just seeing that couple—they were so happy yesterday...’ She shook her head as if to shake away the scene in the day room. ‘It was a good idea to get some fresh air.’
‘It helps. I hate being inside hospitals.’
‘Do you hate hospitals because of your accident?’ She encountered his blank expression and touched her own head.
‘Oh, that.’ He shrugged. ‘No one likes hospitals.’
Suddenly Lily felt very angry, remembering what he’d told her about his mother. ‘I just don’t get... How could she?’
Ben shook his head.
‘She was your mother. How could she leave you alone? Was your father there?’
‘He was in the middle of a project or affair, maybe both. He was good at multitasking, but I got the best medical care money could buy.’ Her empathy was beginning to make him uncomfortable. He did not think of himself as an object of pity. ‘This is the part where I normally bring out the violins.’ He cocked his head to his shoulder and pretended to play a violin.
‘It’s not funny!’ Maybe making a joke of it was his way of coping?
‘My grandfather came,’ he said, hoping this would stop her flow of indignation.
‘Was that when they sent you to live with him?’
Ben shook his head, exasperated by her persistence. ‘No, that was a couple of years later and I sent myself.’
‘Sent?’
‘I packed my bags and told them I was going, end of story.’
Her emerald eyes widened in astonishment. ‘And they let you?’
‘I didn’t ask permission and I imagine they were secretly relieved. So was I when my grandfather let me stay.’
‘Have you told him yet, your grandfather, about Emmy?’ She took his expression as a no. ‘I’ll give Mum a ring and ask her not to tell him before you’ve had a chance to speak to him. You can’t let him hear something like this from a stranger. He’s old.’
‘Old and as tough as old boots,’ Ben retorted, no inflection in his voice.
‘Maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But at his age something like flu can take a long time to get over.’
The comment slid through his defences. ‘He had flu?’
‘You didn’t know?’ She was startled.
Ben compressed his lips, his jaw hard as he turned and curved his hands around the cold metal rail he had been leaning against before admitting, ‘We had a ten-minute conversation last week. I hadn’t been home...well, since the last time and he threw me out.’
‘I assumed you’d had a falling out...’
Ben opened his mouth to tell her that it was none of her business and instead found himself responding to her probing with an explanation.
‘My efforts to update the estate did not go down well. He accused me of being heartless and avaricious.’ An accusation that had left a bitter taste in his mouth because Ben was pretty sure that, even though he’d never mentioned it to his grandfather, the old man knew about the money Ben had surreptitiously sunk into various projects on the estate. Unless he thought the aged machinery in the saw mill renewed itself? ‘It appears he thinks forward planning involves selling off a painting or a piece of land to settle debts.’
Lily felt a stab of sympathy for both men. ‘I suppose it’s hard for someone like your grandfather to relinquish control...young lion, old lion type of thing...?’ she suggested tentatively. ‘People need to feel needed.’
‘There’s just no talking to the man!’ The explosive complaint left his lips before he could censor it. He shrugged, moderating his tone as he added, ‘But I will tell him about Emily Rose.’
Hopefully the shock would not see him off, he thought grimly. Would it heal any rifts? The jury was still out on that one.
‘When?’
‘Next weekend,’ he decided, estimating the time the round trip would take him by helicopter as he unzipped his leather jacket. ‘The next time Elizabeth wants to go back to Warren Court let me know—you can use the chopper. It’s at her disposal any time she wants it.’
Lily blinked at the generous offer.
‘And you, of course.’
Lily, who had no plan to go anywhere, nodded then frowned as he removed his jacket. Underneath he wore a thin long-sleeved top. ‘What are you doing?’
In response he took hold of the hem of the cashmere top.
Panic slid through her. It turned out to be justified because a moment later he was standing there naked from the waist up, revealing his muscle-ridged golden torso to anyone who might be passing.
Only there was no one in the car park but her. Her own private striptease.
She had no control over the movement of her wide eyes as they made a covetous sweep from his broad, powerful shoulder to his ribbed belly. The warmth that began in the pit of her belly spread outwards until she was burning and hot all over. A sound that was half moan, half protest left her mouth as she struggled to tear her gaze free. He had a body like a classical statue.
‘Well, come on, I’m getting cold.’ He sounded impatient.
She looked at the top he held out to her and closed her mouth with an audible snap.
‘Do you really want to spend the rest of the day looking like that?’
Lily followed the direction of his gaze downwards, registering for the first time the coffee stains all down her front. There were some splashes on her slim-legged trousers but her top was totally ruined. She patted ineffectually at the still-damp stains, stopping as she recognised it was a lost cause—she barely even remembered spilling the coffee. What had it been—five, ten minutes ago...? It felt as though it had happened in another life!
She looked at the fabric fluttering slightly as a breeze caught it and her brain belatedly translated the gesture—he was offering her his top.
‘Thanks, but I couldn’t possibly—’
‘There isn’t a hidden catch.’
‘You need it!’ she declared, shaking her head and not