LITMIR.BIZ

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money and time had only served to consolidate that opinion.

      Her mother had been strung along by a rich man and in the end he hadn’t been able to tear himself away from his wealthy background. But, beyond the story of one insignificant person, Rose had seen how, time and again, the wealthy took what they wanted without any thought at all for the people they trampled over.

      The community that had rallied around her was, over the years, being invaded because developers couldn’t keep their hands away from the temptation to take what was there and turn it into money-making projects. Their little oasis in the Cotswolds was achingly pretty and was also close enough to Oxford to save it from being too unremittingly rural.

      In a very real sense, Rose felt that she owed a duty to the small community that had embraced her when her mother had started acting erratically and that included saving it from the whims of rich developers.

      She was, for the first time in her life, sorely tempted to explain all of this to the ridiculously good-looking guy who, she noted wryly, had completely abandoned all attempts at vegetable preparation and was now pushing himself away from the counter to hunt down whatever wine was in the fridge.

      ‘I never know what’s there,’ Rose said, half turning. ‘The fridge has ended up being fairly communal property. Once a week someone has a go at tossing out whatever has gone past its sell-by date and everyone more or less tries to replace what’s been taken so that we never find ourselves short of essentials like milk.’

      ‘Doesn’t that bug you?’

      ‘No. Why should it?’

      ‘Maybe because this is your house and a man’s house should be his castle? What’s the point of a castle if you let down the ramparts every two seconds to welcome in invaders? Who go through your belongings like gannets? Is this wine common property? Who does it belong to?’ He held up a cheap bottle of plonk, which was better than nothing.

      ‘That’s mine and on the subject of one’s house being one’s castle, I can’t afford that luxury.’ Rose wasn’t looking at him as she delivered this observation. In the companionable peace of the kitchen it felt comfortable to chat and she realised that, yes, quite often she longed for the pleasure of having the house to herself. ‘I’m just lucky that I have this place. It was given to my mum by...er...by a friend and when she died it was passed onto me...’

      Arturo looked at her carefully, but his voice was casual enough when he next spoke.

      ‘Generous gift,’ he murmured. ‘Boyfriend? Lover? That kind of friend?’

      ‘Something like that.’ Rose swivelled, took the wine from him and, having bunged all the vegetables and seasoning into a pan with some sauce, she edged towards the kitchen table, absently sweeping some of the papers away and stacking half-finished cardboard placards into a pile on the ground. ‘You’re doing it again.’

      ‘Doing what?’ Arturo sipped some wine and looked at her over the rim of the glass.

      ‘Prying,’ she said drily. ‘Is that a habit of yours? No, don’t answer that.’ She raised her eyebrows and shot him a shrewd assessing look. ‘You pry. I gathered that the second you started opening doors to rooms when you first arrived, wanting to find out what was going on where. Must be your nature.’

      ‘Expertly summed up... I like to find things out. How else can anyone have an informed opinion unless they’re in possession of all the facts?’

      ‘You’re very arrogant, aren’t you?’ But she laughed, seeing that as commendable in someone who felt passionate about what was happening in the world around him. Too many people were content to sit on the fence rather than take a stand. Digging deep and arriving at an informed opinion was what separated the doer from the thinker. ‘I mean that if you don’t encourage domesticity and you don’t do much talking to women then it’s unlikely you ask them many questions about what they think. So why,’ she added, ‘are you being so inquisitive with me?’

      ‘Maybe because I’ve never met anyone like you before.’

      ‘Is that a good thing?’ Rose detected the breathless note in her voice with a shiver of alarm. She was mesmerised by the lazy smile that lightened the harsh beauty of his face.

      ‘For me, it’s...strangely exciting.’

      Her eyelids fluttered and her breathing hitched and her whole body suddenly tingled as though she had been caressed.

      Arturo looked at her with leisurely, assessing eyes. He was clearly used to having what he wanted when it came to women. She sensed it included immediate gratification.

      ‘I... Look... I didn’t ask you to stay here...because...because...’ She cleared her throat and subsided into awkward silence.

      ‘Of course not, but I’m not the only one feeling this thing, am I?’

      ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

      ‘No? We’ll run with that for the time being, shall we? Tell me about the house.’

      Rose blinked. Somewhere along the line she’d stopped being the feisty lawyer with the social conscience and had morphed into...a gawky adolescent with a teenage crush on the cute new boy in class. The chemistry between them was overwhelming. It slammed into her like a fist and the fact that he felt it as well, felt something at any rate, only made the situation worse. She’d spent a lifetime protecting herself from her emotions getting the better of her, had approached men with wariness because she knew the sort of scars that could be inflicted when bad choices went horribly wrong. On no level could this man be described as anything but a bad choice. So why was she perspiring with nerves and frantically trying to shut down the slide show of what could happen if she gave in...?

      ‘The house?’ she parroted, a little dazed.

      ‘You were telling me that you inherited the house...that your mother was given it...’

      ‘Right.’

      And how had that come about? she wondered. When she was the last person who made a habit of blabbing about her personal life?

      Disoriented at the chaos of her thoughts, she set to finishing the meal—anything to tear her gaze away from his darkly compelling face—but her hand was shaking slightly as she began draining pasta and warming the sauce.

      ‘My mother had a fling with a guy,’ she said in a halting voice, breathing more evenly now that she wasn’t gawping at him like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

      ‘Happens...’

      ‘Yes, it does.’ She swung around to look him squarely in the eyes. ‘Especially when you’re in mourning for the man you thought you’d be sitting next to in your old age, watching telly and going misty-eyed over the great-grandchildren...’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      Rose sighed. ‘Nothing.’

      * * *

      ‘Tell me more.’ Art hadn’t eaten home-cooked food in any kitchen with any woman for a very, very long time. He dug into the bowl of pasta with gusto, realising that he was a lot hungrier than he’d thought.

      He was eating here, just a stranger passing through instead of a billionaire to be feared, feted and courted by everyone with whom he came into contact. This was what normality felt like. He could scarcely remember the feeling. He wondered whether this was why he was intensely curious about her because she, like this whole experience, represented something out of the ordinary. Or maybe, he decided, it just stemmed from the fact that no information he could glean from her would be put to waste, not when he had a job to do. This was all just part of the game and what else was life but an elaborate game? In which there would inevitably be winners and losers and when it came to winning Art was the leader of the pack.

      Far more comfortable with that pragmatic explanation, Art shot her an encouraging look.

      ‘It’s no big deal.’ Rose shrugged

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