Free Bridal Bargains by Michelle Reid

tricked by his quiet interest in her during dinner.
    Maybe he saw it. ‘I am sorry if that offends you,’ he said. ‘But it is important here that you keep your mind focused on what is best for you and Melanie. And if it has come down to a choice between having the child adopted and my offer, then I think mine is your better option.’
    ‘But then you would, wouldn’t you?’ Claire pointed out, and came stiffly to her feet. ‘Now I want my baby and I want to go home,’ she informed him with enough ice-cold intent to match any he could dish out.
    It made his face snap with irritation. ‘Don’t be foolish!’ he rasped. ‘That is no solution and only promises you more misery!’
    I’m miserable now, Claire thought unhappily. ‘I thought you were kind!’ she burst out, blue eyes bright with a pained disillusionment. ‘I thought you genuinely cared about what had happened to me! When all the time while you’ve been shadowing me around today you’ve been plotting this!’
    Her voice rose on a clutch of hurt. He winced at the sound of it. ‘I
am
kind!’ he growled, looking faintly uncomfortable with his own role here.
    Claire’s thick huff of scorn made his eyes flash warningly,then, with a grimace, he seemed to be allowing her the right to be scornful.
    ‘I can be kind,’ he amended huskily, scraped an impatient set of long fingers through his hair, then even amended the amendment. ‘I
will
be kind,’ he declared in a voice that made it a promise.
    Still, it held no sway with Claire. ‘Thank you for the offer but no, thank you,’ she refused, moving stiffly towards the door.
    ‘Before you walk through that door, Miss Stenson, don’t you think you should take a moment to consider what your decision is going to mean to your sister …?’
    Smooth as silk, his voice barely revealing an inflection, his words still had her steps faltering and growing still, the fine quiver touching her soft mouth sign enough that, just like her aunt, he had managed to find the right button to press without having to look very hard for it.
    ‘But—why?’ she cried, lifting perplexed blue eyes to his deadly ruthless face. ‘If you feel such a strong need to will your possessions to someone, then why not get a family of your own?’
    It didn’t make sense—none of it did. Neither did the way he suddenly stiffened up as if he’d been shot. ‘I will never marry again,’ he said. ‘Not in the way you are suggesting anyway.’
    ‘You’ve been married before?’
    ‘Yes. Sofia—died six years ago.’ The confirmation was coldly blunt.
    ‘Oh … I’m so sorry,’ Claire murmured, her expression immediately softening into sympathy.
    His did the opposite. ‘I have no wish to discuss it,’ he clipped, and the way he said it was enough to stop Claire from daring to ask any more questions.
    But she was curious. Suddenly very curious about the woman he had lost whom he must have loved very deeply ifhe never wanted to marry again. Not for real, anyway, she dryly tagged onto that.
    ‘There are other ways these days to get children without having to commit yourself to marriage, you know,’ she pointed out gently. ‘Medical science has become quite clever in that respect.’
    ‘I am Greek,’ he replied as if that explained everything. And he didn’t elaborate. Instead he pulled everything back to the main issue. ‘I want you to consider very carefully what you will be gaining if you agree to marry me. For you will get to bring up your mother’s child in the kind of luxury most people only dream of.’
    Humility is not one of his strongest points, Claire made wry note.
    ‘Think of it,’ he urged. ‘No more living from hand to mouth. No more having to go without so you can ensure that the child is clothed and fed. No worrying where the next week’s rent is coming from. Instead,’ he concluded, listing the advantages of his so-called proposal in much the same way her aunt had done when talking about Melanie’s