“You’d make a brilliant caterer,” he had said, sitting her down while he’d fussed over a roux that was giving him trouble. “But caterers need capital. Special equipment for a start, depending on how many people you plan on catering for. Then there are the health and safety checks. Of course, you could always source customers who are happy for you to cook on their premises. Failing that, I could put you in touch with one of my mates who runs a fish restaurant...though it’ll be a bit of a commute, to be honest.”
“I don’t own a car,” Rosie had said, thoroughly deflated.
“Could be a small technical hitch, in that case. Bus and cab might do it but then you’d have precious little money left over... Now, taste this roux, darling, and tell me what you think...”
Jack had offered to lend her some money but she had refused. He and Brian were saving for a deposit on a house and Lord only knew when she would be able to pay him back, whatever money he lent her.
All told, it was hopeless.
Rosie felt herself on the verge of tears. She would have to sell the cottage back to Angelo. She pictured his look of smug satisfaction as she stood before him, head lowered, admitting defeat before she had even begun. And, worse than that, she would have to face the thought of him smirking, laughing at her for having made a pass at him, a pass that had been politely declined.
How could she have been so crazy? After everything that had happened between them, how could she have flipped and allowed herself to be swept up in an atmosphere of...what, exactly? Mutual sexual attraction? Or had that been her mind playing tricks on her? And, even if she hadn’t been mistaken, if he had felt some twinge of attraction then what of it? In the light of everything that had happened between them, it didn’t mean anything, as amply proved by his response.
She tried not to think about it. Every time the memory of that ten-second error of judgement began surfacing, she shoved it back down and thought about something else.
Now, she strolled absentmindedly towards the window to draw the curtains and thought about the figures that weren’t adding up. Taking everything into account and looking at the best possible outcome, there was still a worrying shortfall in cash. She wondered whether her bank manager would be amenable to lending her the money to kick-start a business. She was a chef, working for not very much and without a great deal of experience. Could she be called a safe bet? And, if she couldn’t squeeze a loan out of her bank, she would surely need to dig into her savings to get a car. Transport to and from the cottage would be impossible otherwise. There was no nearby bus route and a bicycle would be inadequate.
All over again, she began doing the sums in her head. Through a chink in the curtain, something caught the corner of her eye and she peered through, standing to one side. At just after five, it was dark. It was her day off and, having spent it in front of her computer, her calculator and pads of paper, she had been oblivious to the day passing by, only vaguely aware of the sound of rain gusting along the pavement outside.
Now her heart picked up a pace as she stared at Ian’s car. He hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that he was outside her house. Not directly outside, but parked a little way down the street. He had a small red sports car and she would have recognised it a mile away because on their one and only date he had spent much of the evening boring her rigid with descriptions of it. He had then insisted later, as she had backed off in an attempt to beat a hasty retreat, that she come and inspect the car for herself. He was lounging behind the wheel. Did he know that she had seen him? Did he even know that she was in the house or was he waiting for her to come back from work—and how long had he been there?
Not knowing whether she should go out and confront him, or stay put and hope he’d get bored and drive off, Rosie nervously headed for the kitchen, mobile phone clutched in her hand.
Her fertile imagination went into overdrive, even though she told herself that there was no point imagining the worst. She knew that she would have to do something. Ian had managed to get into the house once before and, frankly, it was no great achievement. The house was poorly maintained and not exactly Fort Knox. The thought of him breaking in while she was asleep sent a shiver of pure fear through her. She could call the police, but would they come? They hadn’t taken her complaint seriously before. Why would they suddenly decide to now? She hadn’t reported his previous break-in, choosing instead to stick her head in the sand and pretend that she could deal with the situation.
As she turned over the various possibilities in her head, the phone buzzed in her hand and she stared down at it in horror, but it wasn’t Ian. It was Angelo. The relief of seeing his name pop up on the screen sent every negative thought about him flying out of her head. She forgot her moment of humiliation. She forgot how much he disliked her and how much he had betrayed her trust.
“Angelo!”
* * *
Angelo wasn’t quite sure why he had called her. He had been proud of the will power it had taken to walk away from the invitation that had clearly been given to him the last time they had met, but pride had made an uncomfortable bed companion. Rosie had returned to his life and, like it or not, he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head. The fact that the air between them hummed and sizzled with untapped sexual energy had been made even worse by the naked desire he had seen flare in her eyes as she had gazed up at him with her hand burning a hole through his shirt.
He had always had rigid control over his life, over his actions and over his behaviour. He had prided himself on his single-minded drive. It was what had propelled him further and further away from the life of hardship into which he had been born. And then she had entered it four years ago and he had allowed his control to slip. There was no way he intended to repeat the mistake! And yet, back she was, screwing with his head.
It enraged him to think that he had deliberately gone on a date with a sexy blonde beauty two evenings ago, a friend of a friend of a friend, and had proceeded to spend the entire time with his mind on Rosie. A follow-up date had not been arranged.
One way or another, he would have to eliminate her from his life once again. He would have to press ahead with his argument that it would be better to sell the cottage to him than to risk trying to move and set up a business that might be doomed to failure. He was a brilliant negotiator. How hard would it be to negotiate her off his land?
And so on the spur of the moment, on a Friday afternoon, he had picked up his phone and called, and the instant he heard her voice he knew that something wasn’t right.
It was shaky, high-pitched. He shot out of his chair and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window that gave his office a magnificent view of London’s Shard and its surroundings.
“Ever enthusiastic to hear my voice,” he drawled, wondering whether he had imagined a certain amount of panic when she had answered his call and then deciding that, yes, he had imagined it. If he hadn’t, then he refused to be sucked into her mood swings. “We need to talk about the boundary lines around the cottage. They were never discussed when I gave the place to Amanda. She wanted land. I have a lot. I gave her a few acres in an informal arrangement. If you insist on living there, something more accurate is going to have to be worked out by lawyers. It might prove an additional expense for you, but it’s essential.”
“Angelo, could you come over? I’m at home. I had the day off work. Look, I know you’re probably busy...” And only got on the phone to issue another threat, another warning of the idiocy of refusing your offer of a buy-out. “But it’s important.” She knew that her voice was cracking and that she had to get it together.
“What’s going on?” This time there was urgency in Angelo’s voice. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, or even if this was some crazy act on her part, but he was already moving to get his jacket, working out in his head the meetings he would have to cancel.
“Remember when you asked me whether I wanted the cottage because I was running away from someone?”
“Keep talking. However,” he felt compelled to qualify, just in case she got it into her head that he was in any way, shape or form, malleable, “don’t think you can play the sympathy or the guilt card and sucker me in to taking a soft line with you about this whole issue.”
“Shut up and listen to me.”
No one spoke to Angelo like that. Amongst rivals in the cut-throat world of high finance and frenetic mergers and acquisitions, he was feared. Amongst women, he was treated with adulation, awe and a fawning desire to please. It occurred to him that that had never been Rosie’s preferred style. It made sense when you considered that she had grown up in the school of hard knocks, just as he had.
For a few seconds, he rushed down Memory Lane at breakneck speed, remembering the way she used to tease him with no attempt to pander to his power; the way she used to argue if she disagreed with something he might have said, the way she had laid down ground rules when they had first started going out together and he had shown up late for their first date.
“I’m listening but it’d better be good.”
“I was running away from someone—and that someone is sitting outside my house right now and I’m...I’m a little scared.”