"Arguing again, are we?" Harold stormed on his way out the door. "Hormones having a last hooray?"
Oh, please...just let me get on with things, she pleaded silently. She'd never have time to finish the dinner she was preparing at this rate.
She jumped as Harold poked his head around the door again. "Don't forget the importance of this guest. He might take this house off our hands, if we're lucky."
"Harold," she said as mildly as she could manage. "You know the house isn't for sale."
"Can you afford to run it?" he demanded. "No. I didn't think so," he scoffed before she had time to answer. "Just be friendly, if that's not too hard for you. I'll do the bargaining, and get him to up his offer."
This House Is Not For Sale, she intoned silently. There was no point saying anything out loud to Harold. He wouldn't listen. She couldn't deny that the thought of finally meeting the man who had been buying up all the land and stalking the house intrigued her, but if he was the type to do business with Harold, she doubted he would be very nice.
"What's his name, this man you've invited to dinner?"
"Just make sure the food's ready on time," Harold said, ignoring her question. "I want it served at eight o' clock on the dot. Understood?"
"It will be," she promised, hurrying off.
"You look fat in that dress," he remarked as she walked past him.
He sat outside the door for a good ten minutes. There didn't seem to be anyone around. The gardens surrounding the house—the only piece of green he didn't own as far as the eye could see, he was pleased to acknowledge, were still in good shape, and the pots outside the immaculate front door were neatly tended. Lady Frost's work, he presumed. He couldn't imagine how she handled such a big garden on her own.
He'd have to go inside at some point, but he wasn't looking forward to the evening, or to the meal. If this house hadn't been so important to him, he would have delegated this visit to someone else, but it was a necessary exercise to make sure he won over Lady Frost and got her signature on the co
ntract.
It wasn't just the thought of a long, dreary evening ahead of him that was keeping him in the car. He was still thinking about the redhead. Thoughts of her had been plaguing him since the last moment he saw her, when she had left him.
She had left him?
He couldn't remember the last time that happened. And like all treats that were snatched away, he wanted her more than ever. He wanted to learn more about her. He should have asked for her number and her address. He was usually such a smooth operator where women were concerned, that things like that never slipped his mind. She had really distracted him.
The redhead was enough to distract anyone, he reasoned, and tonight nothing must interfere with the purchase of this house.
Closing his mind to the cracks in the outer walls that suggested subsidence, together with peeling paintwork and a general air of neglect, he swung out of his Lamborghini and jogged up the steps. The door swung open almost before he had the chance to raise the lion's head doorknocker. It flew back so violently on its hinges that it slammed into the wall. He couldn't have been more surprised to find himself staring down into the face of the little bully from the wet street. The stench of alcohol coming off him turned Jack's stomach. His thoughts turned immediately to Bella. Was she here too? Was this the husband she'd told him about? Was Bella Lady Frost?
At the far end of the hall there was a portrait of a young girl in a white dress with red hair. Bella. There was no mistaking her. The thought that he'd found her thrilled him beyond expression. The thought that she was married to this creep appalled him.
"The great Jack Castle," Frost gushed as he extended his arms to welcome Jack inside.
"Mr. Frost, I presume?" Jack said pleasantly, stepping carefully around the man as he swayed perilously to and fro.
"Please call me Harold—everyone else does—when they're not being rude about me, of course."
Jack summoned up the expected laugh, but he was more interested in finding Bella. The thought of her living with this drunken bully made him sick to the stomach, as well as uneasy about her safety.
He took everything in at a glance. The smell of decay, the damp patches on the ceiling that extended down the walls, and the half empty bottle of single malt, sitting in a pool of spilled drink on a highly polished console table. The top of the bottle was missing and Frost had a glass in his hand. He was dead drunk to the point that when he reached for Jack's hand to shake it in welcome, he missed.
"Can I help you?" Jack offered, trying to take the glass from Frost's hand so the man could steady himself against the wall, but Frost just hugged the glass closer, as if he thought Jack might steal his drink away. This did not argue well for a business meeting, let alone the rest of the evening.
"Welcome to our humble home," Frost declared, staggering back a few steps. "My good woman can't wait to meet you. Won't you come inside?"
"Thank you." He followed Frost down the hall, looking to the left and right in the hope of seeing Bella. "I hope your wife hasn't gone to too much trouble tonight." He hoped that prompting Frost might give him a clue as to where she was.
"She will have gone to a lot of trouble. I told her to put on a good show for you."
I'm sure you did, he thought as Frost stopped outside a set of double doors. The doors opened onto an imposing library. The first thing he noticed was that a great chunk of the wall had been ripped out to make way for a glass and granite wet bar that stuck out like a sore thumb in the elegantly paneled room.
"Won't you have a drink?" Frost invited, after he'd filled his own glass to the brim.