LITMIR.BIZ

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amazement, Rose had been happy to feed the guy and give him free advice. Little wonder she didn’t have much money going spare when she failed to charge for most of her services.

      Her absolute lack of interest in making money should have been anathema to him but the opposite appeared to be the case. The more she invited the world into her house, the more he wanted her to slam the front door so that he could have her all to himself.

      Nothing to do with the reason he was here.

      Just because...he wanted to have her all to himself.

      He’d managed to find a couple of hours during which he’d touched base with several of his clients and answered a couple of urgent emails and then he’d done some painting.

      Now, at a little after six-thirty, he stood back to inspect his efforts and was quietly pleased with what he had managed. The mucus shade of green was slowly being replaced by something off-white and bland. Big improvement.

      Still in paint-spattered clothes, Art went downstairs, fully expecting to find a few more waifs and strays in the kitchen, but instead there was just Rose sitting at the kitchen table, poring over a file.

      From the doorway, he stood and looked, giving in to the steady pulse of desire rippling through him like a forbidden drumbeat. She was frowning, her slender hands cupping her face as she peered down at the stack of papers in front of her. She reached to absently remove the clasp from her hair and he sucked in a sharp breath as it fell around her shoulders in a tumble of uncontrolled curls. Deep chestnut brown...shades of dark auburn...paler strands of toffee...a riot of vibrant colour that took his breath away.

      For once she wasn’t wearing something long and shapeless but instead a pair of faded blue jeans and an old grey cropped tee shirt and, from the way she was hunched over the table, he was afforded a tantalising glimpse of her cleavage.

      She looked up, caught his eye and sat back.

      She stretched and half yawned and the forbidden drumbeat surged into a tidal wave of primal desire.

      No bra.

      He could see the jut of her nipples against the soft cotton and the caution he had been meticulously cultivating over the past few days disappeared in a puff of smoke.

      His erection was as solid as a shaft of steel and he had to look away to gather himself for a few vital seconds or else risk losing the plot altogether.

      ‘Took the afternoon off.’ Rose smiled and stood up. ‘Hence the casual gear. Drink? Tea? Coffee? Something stronger? I’ve actually gone out and bought some wine.’

      ‘The rent I pay doesn’t cover food. It’s Friday. Allow me to take you out for a meal.’

      * * *

      Rose hesitated. She hadn’t been out for a meal with a man for ages. She was twenty-eight years old and the thrills of her social life could be written on the back of a postage stamp.

      ‘Restaurants will be packed out.’ She laughed, anticipation bubbling up inside her. ‘Tourists...’

      ‘We can venture further afield. Name the place and I’ll reserve a table.’

      ‘Don’t be silly. You don’t have to...’

      ‘You don’t have to...?’ Arturo shot her a wry look from under sooty lashes. ‘Anyone who knows me at all would know that those four words would never apply to me because I make it my duty never to feel that I have to do anything I don’t want to do. If I didn’t want to take you out to dinner I would never have issued the invitation in the first place. Now, name the place.’

      God, Rose thought, who would ever think that she would go for a guy who took charge? She was much more into the sensitive kind of guy who consulted and discussed. Arturo Frank couldn’t have been less of a consulting and discussing man, and yet a pleasurable shiver rippled through her as she met his deep, dark eyes. ‘Name the place? Now, let me think about that. How generous are you feeling tonight...?’

      Rose shocked herself because she wasn’t flirtatious by nature. Her mother had always been the flirt, which was probably why she had ended up where she had. That was a characteristic Rose had made sure to squash, not that there had ever been any evidence of it being there in the first place.

      But she felt like a flirt as their eyes tangled and she half smiled with her head tilted pensively to one side.

      ‘I’m just kidding.’ She grinned and ran her fingers through her tangled hair. ‘There are a couple of excellent pizza places in the next village along. I can call and reserve a table. So...in answer to your invitation, it’s a yes.’

      ‘I’m saying no to the cheap and cheerful pizza place,’ Arturo delivered with a dismissive gesture, eyes still glued to her face.

      ‘In that case...’

      ‘Leave it with me. I’ll sort it.’

      ‘You will?’

      ‘Expect something slightly more upmarket than a fast-food joint.’

      ‘In which case, I’ll naturally share the bill.’

      ‘That won’t be happening. When I ask a woman out, she doesn’t go near her wallet.’

      There she went, tingling all over again! Behaving like the frothy, frilly, girly girl she had never been. He was so macho, so alpha male, so incredibly intelligent, and yet he cared about all the things she cared about. She prided herself on being savvy but she could feel the ground slip beneath her feet and she liked the way it felt, enjoyed the heady sensation of falling.

      She wasn’t interested in any man who was just passing through, but a little voice asked inside her head... What if she took a risk? After all, where had being careful got her?

      And an even more treacherous little voice whispered seductively, What if he delays his plans to move on...? In the end all nomads found their resting ground, didn’t they? And there were jobs aplenty for a guy as smart and proactive as he was...

      ‘Okay.’

      ‘You look a little bemused. What kind of guys have you gone out with in the past? Did they take out their calculator at the end of the meal so that they could split the bill in half? Call me antiquated—’ his voice lowered to a murmur ‘—but I enjoy being generous with the women I take out.’

       So we’re going on a date.

      Excitement surged through Rose in a disturbing, all-consuming tidal wave.

      Maybe—she brought herself back down to earth—it wasn’t a date. As such. Maybe it was simply his way of saying thank you for renting a room in her house and having whatever food and drink he wanted at his disposal. He was paying her a lot more than she’d wanted but it was still a lot less than if he’d been staying in even the cheapest of the local hotels.

      But the warmth of his gaze was still turning her head to mush when, an hour later and with no idea where they would be going, she stood in front of her wardrobe surveying the uninspiring collection of comfortable clothes that comprised her going-out gear.

      It bore witness to the alarming fact that when it came to going out she had become decidedly lazy over time. Easy evenings with friends, the occasional movie, casual suppers at the kitchen table, for which she could have shown up in her PJs and no one would really have cared one way or the other.

      In fact, working largely from the house as she did, her work clothes were interchangeable with her casual wear. Everything blurred into loose-fitting and shapeless.

      Practical, she reminded herself, hand brushing past the baggy culottes to linger on the one and only figure-hugging skirt she possessed. Her wardrobe was filled with practical clothes because she was, above all else, practical. Her mother had had the monopoly on impulsive behaviour. She, Rose, was practical.

      Yet she didn’t feel practical as she wriggled into the clinging jade-green skirt and the only

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