After all, he thought, looking out over the garden, would someone who didn’t understand hard work or dedication have worked so diligently to expose the carefully cultivated loveliness behind the weeds?
“I’m sure the old guys at the center will be thrilled to have you. You’re far easier on the eyes than their usual coordinator.”
“Oh, I’m sure the novelty will wear off soon enough,” she said, brushing aside his comments even as a delicious blush spread up her chest and neck before tinting her cheeks with a delicate pink.
“Well, I had better get back to work,” Finn said, rising to his feet.
“What is it you do exactly?” she asked, getting up to lean on the railing that skirted the edge of the veranda.
“This and that. At the moment I’m developing a new idea.”
“Oh, hush-hush, is it? Tell, and you’d have to kill me, is that it?”
Finn chuckled. “No, nothing like that. I used to be in I.T.,” he said, downplaying the company he’d established on the internet and then sold for several billion dollars a few years ago. “Nowadays I dabble in all sorts of things, including the vineyards around us. The owners here and I are partners in this lot.”
He opened his arms to encompass the surrounding land.
“I’m impressed,” Tamsyn answered with a smile. “I’ll bet this is a lot more fun than being lashed to a computer all day.”
“Different strokes. What I did was fun at the time. Leaving it was even more so as it gives me the freedom now to do what I please, although I’m more of a silent partner with the vines. We grow for supply to the local wineries and it turns over a good living.”
He started to walk toward his car, Tamsyn following him.
“I enjoyed the coffee,” she said, “and the lesson in how to make it. Thank you for coming over.”
“No problem. Say, are you busy for dinner tonight? I was wondering if you’d like to come up the hill and eat with me. Beats eating alone.”
“Are you sure I won’t be any bother?”
“One steak or two on the grill, it makes no difference to me.”
“Okay, then,” she agreed. “I’d like that. How about I bring a salad and something for dessert?”
“I’ve got dessert covered, but if you’d like to bring a salad that’d be great. See you around six?”
“Sure.” She nodded eagerly, her dark eyes glowing. “I’m looking forward to it already.”
Nine
The afternoon dragged interminably. Tamsyn dusted and polished and vacuumed the cottage feverishly. She’d had to keep busy to keep her mind off the dinner ahead.
Over and over she’d told herself it was just a neighborly gesture, but she couldn’t forget that moment yesterday when they’d almost kissed. Of course, she’d castigated herself several times over for a fool for even contemplating kissing another man. It had only been a matter of days since she’d broken her engagement. But had it been a true engagement?
She’d thought so at the time, even though their relationship had been low on intimacy and high on society events. Looking back, she realized that Trent had been grooming her to be his very public partner right from the start of their relationship—introducing her to the senior partners of the law firm where he worked at his earliest opportunity. She could see now that she’d been a smoke screen to hide the parts of himself that his conservative bosses wouldn’t have liked, and now that the shock was receding, she was angry. Angry at him for using her so badly and, even more so, angry with herself for not realizing she was being used.
Perhaps if she hadn’t had such a sheltered upbringing at The Masters. Perhaps if she’d traveled widely, like her soon-to-be-sister-in-law, Isobel, or been more outgoing or…well, anything—it might have saved her from making herself into the biggest fool in her family’s history. Whatever, she’d grown up the way she had, made the choices and decisions that had led her to Trent and now here. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
Yet, if that was the case, why did she feel she had so much to prove? Why was it so important to her that a man like Finn Gallagher find her attractive? She’d be stupid not to have seen the way he looked at her. She’d done a fair bit of looking herself—he was, after all, gorgeous, and he made her feel almost gorgeous herself. Maybe a fling with a man like Finn Gallagher was exactly what she needed.
She was going to dinner with an attractive man. One who’d asked for her company. One who she’d seen every day since she arrived here. That had to count for something, surely. He’d chosen to seek her out, chosen to spend time with her. The idea gave her a happy buzz and she went out to the vegetable garden with a spring in her step.