Dirty Aristocrat

He smiled and shook his head slowly. ‘No. They are the opposite of ghost cities. A ghost town is one that is abandoned when the town’s fortunes decline and the people move away. These

are the opposite. The people have not come in to occupy them yet. The Chinese are long-term planners. They can defer pleasure for years in the pursuit of a cherished goal.’

‘So you must be a real catch. What are you, like Britain’s most eligible millionaire or something?’ I clapped my hands over my mouth.

‘Billionaire,’ he corrected.

‘Sometimes you need a billion dollars,’ I quipped.

‘That’s truer than you realize,’ he said. ‘There’s almost nothing to beat the feeling of being so completely and utterly financially solvent.’

I looked at him and for the first time I felt as if I was seeing the real him. I felt a sense of peace spring up between us and I felt connected to him. We didn’t have much in common but

we had this. We didn’t try to pretend that money was not important. We both knew it was. Without it this world was a cruel place indeed.

I knew what it was to have nothing, not even a roof over my head, and it was the scariest, most horrible feeling in the world. I will never be able to scratch from my mind the sensation

that felt as if my stomach was slowly digesting itself, and how that hunger robbed my spirit. I don’t care what anybody says: hunger butchers love.

When Robert took me under his wing and said, ‘From now on until the day you die you’ll be able to afford anything you want,’ I cried with relief.

I looked into Ivan’s crazy-assed, silver eyes and that nameless thing between us started crackling again. If I had carried on looking at him the atmosphere in the car would have changed.

The peace would have dissipated. Electricity and an aching longing would have taken over and I would be under his spell again, boneless, unable to do anything but what his body demanded

of mine. I didn’t want that. Not now when I just found a real connection to him.

‘Oh my God!’ I cried in a mock-horrified voice. ‘The tabloids will have a field day. I can just see the headlines now.’ I zipped my hand in the air to punctuate every word that followed.

‘Greedy American Widow Steals Britain’s Most Eligible Billionaire.’

‘No, they’ll say, “Lucky bastard marries breathlessly beautiful, leggy blonde.”

I swallowed. If only it could always be like this between us. ‘No they won’t,’ I croaked. ‘They’ll hate me. I don’t have the right accent.’

He opened his mouth to speak but I interrupted him.

‘But don’t you worry about nothin’. I’ll be darling at being a billionaire’s bride.’

He threw his head back and laughed, the first real laugh since I knew him, and that made me smile. Sometimes, I decided, I really liked Ivan de Greystoke.

Ivan parked the car on the vast gravel car park and we got out. A white delivery van drove in after us and drove around the back. We were walking towards the imposing frontage when a man

in a cream sweater and white slacks ran out, his face wreathed in a large smile. He might have been gay. He flapped his hands expressively.

‘Good morning, my Lord. How wonderful to see you again. Will your Lordship be staying? Should I get your room ready?’

‘No, I’m not staying, Lee. Just wanted to give my fiancée a tour.’

Lee’s eyebrows shot into his hairline.

‘Why, my Lord, I had no idea. Congratulations are in order.’ He turned his face towards me, his expressive brown eyes zig-zagging down my body and lingering one second longer on my

cowboy boots. Yes, definitely gay. ‘Welcome to Foxgrove Hall, Mrs. Maxwell.’

I raised my eyebrows, surprised that he knew who I was, but I guess I was talk of the town.

‘Thank you, Lee,’ I said politely.

He smiled and turned towards Ivan. ‘Well, I can serve brunch or lunch if you prefer anytime you feel like it.’

‘Does Mrs. Kennedy know to make muffins?’ Ivan asked.

‘I only have to inform her.’

Ivan looked at me. ‘What flavor?’

‘Blueberries,’ I said.

‘Done,’ said Lee with a smirk.

Then Ivan put a possessive hand on the small of my back and led me up the grey stone stairs, and it was nothing like the polite one that Ralph had used to guide me across the road. This

one said, this woman is fucking mine.

This was turning out to be a sweet day, but a surreal one.

In the tall stone hallway where the house branched into three parts, Ivan stopped. He said he had a few phone calls to make and asked if I wouldn’t mind doing a bit of exploring on my

own for a bit.

‘Yeah, I can do that,’ I agreed.

He suggested we meet back in the breakfast room in an hour. He waved his hand down the corridor on the left. ‘It’s the last room at the end of that corridor.’