by Helen Brooks
‘Cut the spiel, Glen,’ Kingsley said dryly, ‘it won’t work on this lady. And she’s a business colleague, before you get too carried away.’
‘So there is hope for me? Even better!’
The black eyes were wicked but full of laughter, and Rosalie found herself laughing back as she said, ‘If the food is as good as the welcome, no wonder you are so popular.’
‘Rosalie; Glen Lorena, the biggest sweet-talker this side of the ocean. Glen; Rosalie Milburn, my new quantity surveyor for the English job.’
‘This is true?’ The Latin face expressed surprise. ‘But you are too lovely to do such work. I cannot believe this.’
‘Believe it, buddy.’ Kingsley had noticed the dimming of Rosalie’s smile and took swift action, ushering her further into the restaurant as he said over his shoulder, ‘Usual table free?’
‘Of course, my friend, of course. The moment I received your reservation the table became yours.’
Glen joined them a moment later, taking their order for drinks as he presented them with two dog-eared menus before disappearing again. Rosalie glanced round. The room was not large and it was packed with diners, in spite of the furniture being on the basic side without a taste of luxury anywhere. They were sitting in what was clearly a prime position in a small alcove, a table that gave an element of privacy without obstructing the view.
As her eyes returned to Kingsley he leant forward slightly. ‘Glen didn’t mean anything by that last remark,’ he said softly. ‘It’s just his way. His wife used to work as a barrister before they got this place so he’s got no problem with women and careers.’
Rosalie nodded stiffly. It was true she hadn’t appreciated the Italian’s comment about her job; she’d suffered the same sort of surprise too often in the past, normally accompanied by a distinctly patronising interest afterwards. After a degree course followed by three years of practical training and then the Assessment of Professional Competence, she felt she’d served a good apprenticeship before she began working as a fully qualified surveyor in what was still very much a male-dominated environment.
She had found she had to be just that bit better than her male colleagues at first to be taken seriously, but being a female in such a position was definitely a situation of swings and roundabouts. Most of the builders were tickled pink to see her arrive on site, and, once they realised she knew her onions and wasn’t going to be fooled or cajoled into accepting late dates or poor quality work, they were pussy-cats in her hands.
She’d often heard Mike and the others bemoaning the fact that they got all the stick from both the builder’s own surveyors and also the client when things went wrong, but usually, with just a smidgen of charm, her jobs ran on nicely oiled wheels.
‘Whilst we’re on the subject of careers,’ Kingsley continued smoothly, ‘what did make you take up quantity surveying?’
Rosalie stared at him. She hadn’t been aware they were on the subject of anything. She shrugged after a moment or two, her lashes sweeping down and hiding her gaze from the piercing one opposite as she said carefully, ‘I liked the mix of office work and getting my hands dirty on site, I suppose.’
‘Commerce is a hard world,’ Kingsley said quietly, ‘especially for a woman dealing with men who might not like being told what to do or not to do by a female, and a young and attractive one at that.’
Rosalie shrugged again. ‘I’m tougher than I look,’ she said without smiling.
He gazed at her, one dark eyebrow quirked and a disturbing gleam in the back of the brilliant eyes. ‘Are you now?’ he murmured softly. ‘A lady of mystery?’
‘There’s no mystery.’ She had spoken too quickly and she knew it as well as he did. She buried her face in the menu.
So, he’d hit a nerve? Kingsley’s eyes narrowed a fraction as he sat back in his seat just as one of the waiters arrived with the bottle of wine and another of sparkling mineral water. Life had taught him a few lessons in his thirty-five years on the earth, he reflected as he watched the waiter filling their glasses. One, expensive wine was worth every dollar compared to the other stuff. Two, gambling was a mug’s game. Three, never trust a woman, especially a beautiful one with hair like bronzed silk and eyes the colour of a stormy sky, eyes that carried secrets in their cloudy depths. For sure the secrets would be nothing more important than what hair dye she used to colour her hair, and within a few weeks he would be itching to move on. Although Rosalie’s hair looked natural…
He picked up the menu, suddenly annoyed with his thoughts and the world in general although he couldn’t have explained why. ‘The roasted shallot and lemon thyme salad is very good to start with,’ he suggested mildly. ‘One of Glen’s specialities. Or the mediterranean fish soup? And I can recommend the roast lamb or braised tangerine beef with herb dumplings.’
Rosalie smiled politely. She chose watercress soufflé followed by poached fillet of sea bass with asparagus tips, and after she had given her order to Glen, who had reappeared like the proverbial genie out of a bottle, she sat back in her seat and had a couple of hefty swallows of the very good wine whilst she watched Kingsley discussing the merits of the lamb against the beef with his friend. If ever she had needed a drink it was now, she thought with wry self-mockery. Why ever she had agreed to come out to lunch with this disturbing individual she didn’t know, let alone commit to spending what virtually amounted to a whole afternoon in his presence.
When the food came it was utterly delicious, although Rosalie had to admit that Kingsley’s Mediterranean fish soup and roast lamb looked and smelt wonderful, added to which she had never particularly cared for sea bass. But her food was excellent, all of it, along with the wine and the chocolate macadamia steamed pudding drenched with whipped cream she chose for dessert. She didn’t think she had ever tasted food so good, and she told Kingsley so as they drank their coffee.
He smiled. He’d smiled quite often during the meal as they had made light conversation, and she had to concede he’d got the art of conversation, along with the smile, down to a T. But the smile had never reached the cool blue of his eyes and the conversation was such that she knew nothing more about him than when they had first sat down at the table. Which was enough, more than enough, she told herself dryly.
‘Glen’s easily the best chef I’ve ever come across.’ Kingsley drained his coffee-cup and gestured to the hovering waiter for the bill. ‘As the waiting list for a table bears out.’
‘Surely he could earn a fortune if he chose to work somewhere like the Savoy or the Ritz?’ Rosalie asked, her eyes wandering round the interior of the restaurant again.
‘He’s done the big-time thing and ended up nearly ruining his marriage and his health,’ Kingsley said shortly. ‘He got out of the rat race, bought this place and set up with Lucia, his wife, who does all the behind-the-scenes work. He’s had offers galore to go back as a head chef or expand here to bigger and better, but the bottom line is he doesn’t need it. He’s happy here, Lucia’s happy, that’s all that matters to Glen in the long run. He’s found his Shangri-La.’
Rosalie stared at him. ‘You sound as if you envy him,’ she said at last.
He smiled but this time it didn’t even crinkle the skin around his eyes. ‘Why would I do that?’ he said easily. ‘I’m exactly where I want to be in life. How about you?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you. Are you where you want to be in life?’ he asked with a silkiness Rosalie immediately suspected. ‘Doing what you want, being who you want, with whom you want?’
She didn’t like this conversation. ‘Certainly,’ she said briskly.
‘Then we are both very fortunate.’
Rosalie’s jaw set. She couldn’t quite put a label on the quality of his voice but it suggested disbelief, and who the hell was Kingsley Ward to question her, anyway? ‘Yes, we are.’ She rose from her seat. ‘I won’t be a moment,’ she said coolly before making her way to the door marked ‘Signorinas’ at the back of the restaurant.
Once in the small but immaculately clean little cloakroom Rosalie walked across to the two tiny washbasins situated under the plain, unframed mirror. She stared at the flushed reflection and two angry eyes stared back at her. She had done what she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do weeks ago when she’d taken the job, and let Kingsley Ward get under her skin. Her soft lips tightened but her irritation was at herself and not Kingsley.
Self-control. It was all about self-control, everything was, she knew that. If anyone knew that, she did. She shut her eyes, shaking her head as it drooped forward, but today the memories she usually kept firmly under lock and key surfaced in a flood. Suddenly she was a little girl again, sitting shivering on the landing with her eyes straining down into the shadowed hall as she listened to the familiar sound of her father shouting at her mother in the sitting room below. Other sounds followed, they always did, but what made this occasion more memorable than all the ones that had gone before was that in the midst of the sound of slaps there came a silence, and then her father’s voice, the tone agitated, saying, ‘Chantal? Chantal, get up. Come on, get up.’
The memory blurred at this point but she could recall the bright lights of the ambulance and then the police car when they had arrived at the house. It had been a police-woman who had come and found her, still sitting in numb silence on the stairs. They had taken her to her maternal grandparents—her father had been brought up in a children’s home and had no family—and it had been a day or two later when her grandmother had told her, very gently but with tears streaming down her face, that Mummy had gone to see the angels in heaven. Her beautiful, tender mother, who wouldn’t have hurt a fly, had never recovered consciousness from the aneurysm that had begun to bleed in her head, caused by one of her husband’s blows.
On the day of the court appearance her father had taken his own life, and at the age of five she had become an orphan. Her grandparents had looked after her from that point, and with her mother having had younger siblings who had gone on to have children her childhood had not been an unhappy one. But there had been a void, a massive gap because she had been a mummy’s girl from the moment she had been born. As she had grown she had begun to understand why her mother had absorbed herself so completely in her child. Her grandparents had told her that her father had been an unhappy individual as a result of a traumatic childhood, insanely jealous of any attention his wife had paid to another adult, be they man or woman, and consequently her mother had led a life isolated from the rest of the world in an effort to keep the peace. Her headstone was a memorial that this hadn’t worked.
Rosalie raised her head, her eyes large and dark with the painful memories. When she’d been eighteen and entering university her grandparents had decided to return to their native France to live their autumn years with the relatives there; her grandfather’s health had been poor and he’d wanted to be close to his brothers.
She had agonised for some time whether to give up her university place in London and go with them, but she had been born in England and she didn’t want to study in France, besides which there were all the friends she would leave behind. In the end she had stayed, and then she had met Miles Stuart…
‘Enough.’ She spoke the word out loud, her mouth setting in a grim line as she ruthlessly put a check on her mind. Why was she thinking of all this today? But she knew why. Miles and Kingsley Ward were miles apart in many ways, but they both had one attribute that was unmistakable: male magnetism.
It was indefinable, something elusive and subtle, but when a man had it, it cut through all the layers of civilisation and refinement and brought a woman right back to grass-roots level, forcing her to acknowledge a sexual response whether she wanted to or not. A powerful weapon. Her eyes darkened still more. And unfortunately mother nature seemed to excel in bestowing it on two-legged rats who didn’t give a damn.
She breathed deeply before washing her hands, taking a moment or two to run her comb through her hair and apply fresh lipstick before she left the cloakroom and walked to where Kingsley was waiting near the front door of the restaurant. Glen was standing talking to him, and Rosalie kept her eyes on the Italian man as she said pleasantly, ‘That was the best meal I’ve had in a long time, Glen.’
‘It is a pleasure to cook for such a beautiful woman.’ He grinned at her as he spoke, and Rosalie had to laugh. He was outrageous but somehow you knew he was as harmless as a kitten.
She turned her gaze to the long, lean figure beside the restaurateur, and eyes of blue ice looked back at her. ‘All ready?’ Kingsley asked easily, smiling the arctic smile.
Once out on the pavement in the fresh May sunshine, Rosalie remembered her manners. ‘That was a lovely lunch,’ she said politely. ‘Thank you.’
‘The pleasure was all mine.’ An ordinary phrase, but he managed to make it sound like a criticism, as though she’d been churlish. She glanced at him and the azure eyes gazed back innocently.
This was going to be one great afternoon!
CHAPTER THREE
ROSALIE asked herself a hundred times afterwards how it had happened. Over the last ten years she had been to umpteen sites, clambering about measuring foundations and walls and areas of land, and not one accident. So why, why had it been this particular day at this particular site and more especially with this particular man that she’d had to go and make the most almighty fool of herself? One minute she had been talking to the architect and hopefully impressing Kingsley with her handle on the job, the next she’d been flat on her face with her ankle feeling as though it was broken.
The architect, a nice middle-aged man, was all concern, but it was Kingsley who picked her up in his arms after she had tried to rise and nearly passed out with the pain.
‘I…I’m all right. Please, I can walk.’ Through the excruciating throbbing the fact that she was being held close to a hard male chest with her head on an eyeline with his throat took precedence.
‘Keep still.’ She had tried to wriggle free and his voice was curt.
‘Really, it feels better already,’ she lied through gritted teeth.
‘And I’m Mickey Mouse.’
The architect, who was now trotting alongside them as Kingsley carried her over to the parked cars, said soothingly, ‘It might just be a sprain, Miss Milburn, but you really should get it checked at a hospital.’
‘I’m not going to a hospital,’ she responded quickly. ‘Not for a sprain.’
‘That’s exactly where you’re going,’ the deep voice just above her head said flatly.
She would have argued better if she weren’t so horribly conscious of being in his arms, but, with the feel of his body as he moved and the overall heady scent of faint whiffs of the most delicious aftershave, she wasn’t feeling herself. ‘If you’ll just take me back to the office I will be fine,’ she said as firmly as her twanging nerves would allow.
They had just reached the car and he didn’t reply. As the architect opened the passenger door Kingsley placed her into the seat as carefully as one would a piece of Dresden china, but even so the action caused an involuntary gasp before she bit her lip hard, her face white.
‘And you’re talking about going straight back to the office?’ he said disgustedly. ‘Your ankle’s already twice its size and swelling as we speak, or hadn’t you noticed?’
Yes, she had darn well noticed; she was the one feeling the pain, not him!
He shut the passenger door, said a brief word to the architect who was now standing peering worriedly into the car, and then proceeded to make a call on his mobile phone. Rosalie was sure it was about her although she couldn’t hear what was being said. He slid into the car, saying shortly, ‘I’m taking you to a doctor.’
The man was like a cruise missile, but suddenly, what with the pain and the nausea it was causing, she couldn’t argue anymore. Her face must have spoken for itself because he swore softly before reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a small silver hip-flask, unscrewing the top and handing it to
her. ‘Drink some, it’s brandy.’
‘Brandy? I don’t want—’
‘Drink some.’
She drank, just a sip or two but she had to admit the neat alcohol burnt up the nausea causing her to feel more herself. And then she froze as Kingsley took off his jacket, bundling it into a roll and leaning over her as he said, ‘I’m going to put this under your foot to cushion it as best we can, but I’m afraid the journey’s not going to be pleasant.’
And then his head was practically in her lap as he positioned the clump of material that had been a very nice Armani jacket under the injured foot, easing off her court shoe as he did so.
She looked down at the short, spiky jet-black hair and muscled shoulders, and almost asked for another swig of brandy.
‘Thank you.’ She hoped he would put her breathlessness down to pain and ignore the flush of embarrassment that had flooded her cheeks with colour. He had only taken off his jacket, for goodness’ sake, so why did it suddenly feel as if he were almost naked?
He eased himself back into the driving seat, loosening his tie and letting it hang slackly as he undid the first couple of buttons on his shirt.
He had a magnificent body. Her eyes just couldn’t tear themselves away from the broad chest under the silk of his shirt. Powerful and lean, without an ounce of fat anywhere. She gave up trying to be cool and reached for the hip-flask again, taking another sip gratefully.
‘Okay?’ The blue eyes met hers, his voice low with sympathy now, and she gave a brave smile, nodding because she didn’t trust her voice. Suddenly the hospital didn’t seem such a bad idea—anything to get out of the claustrophobic confines of this car.
Having experienced Kingsley’s driving technique earlier in the day, Rosalie appreciated he was driving extremely cautiously once they were underway, but nevertheless every slight jolt or bump of the car had her biting on her lip to stifle the gasps of pain.