by Kate Hardy
‘I wondered when you would get around to blaming me,’ Nick said coolly.
Rose, remembering how she had felt holding onto him and sobbing, cast him a baleful look. ‘I wasn’t blaming you. I was just making a passing remark.’ She had felt weak and helpless and protected and vulnerable, all things she had thought she had left behind when their parents had died and Tony and Flora had taken them in. For that alone, she felt resentful.
‘Ever thought that sometimes life is richer when you step out of your comfort zone?’
‘No,’ Rose said bluntly. ‘There was quite a bit of stepping out of comfort zones when I was young and I don’t remember any of it making my life feel any richer.’
‘Your aunt and uncle…’
‘Wandering the highways and byways. You try facing changes every six months and then tell me how great it is stepping out of comfort zones.’
‘But Lily may have something of the adventurer in her…’
Rose heard the affection in his voice and, yes, she could see why he felt protective towards her sister. Most people did. She had gentle, girlish, winning ways. For the first time in her life she felt a stab of pure, uncharitable jealousy, which made her draw her breath in sharply.
‘Yes, you’re right, she does,’ Rose said coolly. ‘And I don’t.’ Which made her a bore in his eyes because the women who peopled his life, the women he was drawn to, weren’t boring worker bees like her, they were the bright, sparkly, adventurous fireflies that flitted from light to light. ‘Now—’ she stood up ‘—I really would rather you weren’t here when Lily gets home. I want to have a talk with her in private and you needn’t worry that I’m going to do anything that might make her change her mind. I’m happy for her.’
Nick reluctantly rose to his feet. He had glimpsed through a little window of vulnerability and, strangely for him, because vulnerability wasn’t a character trait he found attractive in a woman, he wanted to see a bit more, but Rose was already walking towards the door, just the pinkness round her eyes to account for her crying jag.
‘I don’t expect I’ll be seeing much of you again,’ she told him politely as he slipped on his coat and felt in the pockets, out of habit, for the keys to his apartment.
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because I imagine Lily will leave sooner rather than later. You didn’t specify a time, but I guess cutting edge movie producers don’t sit around tapping their feet waiting for their plots to go cold.’
‘No, I guess they don’t.’
‘So I may not get a chance to tell you that I’d rather you don’t breathe a word to Lily about my…my…’
‘Crying? Breaking down?’
‘My little loss of self-control.’ Rose stuck her chin up and met his eyes without blinking.
She was positively shuffling him towards the front door and she pulled it wide open before he could do the sensible thing and lean against it. Because suddenly and inexplicably, he didn’t want to go. Not just yet. But there was no choice.
‘I won’t tell her. You have my word.’
Rose nodded and, without saying a word, she quietly closed the door in his face.
CHAPTER FOUR
COMPOSING emails to Lily was becoming a combination of subtlety and creative fiction.
After Lily had been abroad for three weeks, it had become clear to Rose that life in the fast lane was suiting her sister. She waxed lyrical about the movie she was making, devoted pages to telling her all about the fabulously talented Damien Hicks and the groovy, exciting people she was working with. The flat she was sharing with four other girls, all newcomers like herself, was cheap but apparently called a condo and had a swimming pool. The adjective amazing had become a staple word in her vocabulary. Everything was amazing from the movie to the people to life in general, and Rose was relieved and pleased that it was all working out for her sister.
Which, unfortunately, didn’t solve the financial problems that seemed to have been saving themselves for the minute Lily waved her fond goodbye to British soil.
The bathroom had sprung a leak, which, as the plumber had ominously told Rose, revealed all the makings of a dated system that could be patched up but would really need to be replaced at some point. Rose had opted for the patching-up job. Then the washing machine had collapsed, which had meant a new one. And now, sitting in the kitchen, she could see a damp patch on the ceiling, which didn’t augur well for the dated plumbing system or, for that matter, her rapidly depleting savings account.
Rose groaned. She wondered how she could phrase the words ‘need money’ so that her sister didn’t go into spasms of guilt and worry. Lily had already apologised for not being able to send any over, but she would just as soon as she could. At the moment, she was being paid enough to cover her rent and build a lifestyle that befitted an up-and-coming Hollywood actress, which left precious little for the crumbling house she had left behind.
Rose didn’t begrudge her a minute of the enjoyment she was having. Lily deserved it. But her single income was being tested to its limits and it was getting harder to keep writing her all ‘fine here’ emails when the roof was falling down.
Literally.
One week later, with the damp patch still making small inroads even though the bath was out of commission, she sat at her kitchen table to the sounds of plumbers banging upstairs and the horrible prospect of going to check on them so that she could find her floorboards up and her cool magnolia walls covered with dust. They had been at it for the past two days, putting in a new, updated system. She had not dared enquire as to the cost but the sight of the shiny new copper pipes had made her blood run cold.
Lily was, according to her email yesterday, heading off for two weeks to Arizona where some of the movie was being filmed. Rose knew that she had tried to de-glamorise the whole thing, but it wasn’t hard to read between the lines that she was bubbling over with excitement.
While I sit here, she thought glumly, like Chicken Little waiting for the sky to fall down. Everything else seemed to be.
The sound of the doorbell managed, just, to penetrate the sounds of the banging and Rose vaguely wondered what life had in store for her next. A kindly neighbour coming to tell her that her car had been vandalised? Maybe they had noticed a spot of terminal subsidence on an outside wall?
She pulled open the door, dressed in her very best dungarees, bedroom slippers and old jumper because dust and fine clothing just didn’t go hand in hand, and there he was. The man she had avoided mentioning in all the emails she had sent her sister, the man who kept popping into her head at all the wrong times, even though she had robustly told herself that she was well rid of him.
Her response to him, lounging indolently against the door frame, finger poised as if about to summon her again, was immediate and powerful. Her stomach constricted and her eyes widened, swiftly and unconsciously taking in his lean, muscular frame and those killer sea-green eyes that seemed to burn holes through her. She had to make a mental effort to gather herself together.
‘Hullo.’ Pause. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Still getting to the point, I see. What’s going on?’
‘What do you mean?’ She followed his curious glance behind her and shrugged. ‘Oh. The noise. Just a bit…of repair work.’
‘Are you going to invite me in?’
‘Has Lily told you to get in touch with me?’ She had been careful not to mention a word about her financial problems, but who knew? Maybe her sister had picked up on something and, innocent that she was, might have mentioned to Nick, Nick with the heart of gold who had done so much for her, that perhaps he could just pop his head round the door and make sure that Rose was okay.
Rose instantly felt like a charity case and gripped the door knob a little harder.
‘I was in the area.’
‘Really? I wouldn’t have thought that this would be the sort of area you would just happen to be passing through.’
‘Stop arguing, Rose, and open the do
or.’ Getting fed up with her non-argument, he pushed the door and strode in, not leaving her the option of slamming it in his face.
Nick, for the first time in years practising celibacy, was aware of the shameful truth, which was that he had been thinking on and off about her for the past few weeks. His life had been as busy and hectic as ever, his work taking him abroad, as it always did, on a regular basis, but every so often he had caught himself conjuring up her face and wondering what she was up to.
Gentle prodding had eventually elicited from Lily something he could respond to. Rose, Lily had told him in all confidence, had not sounded herself when they had last spoken on the phone. She had said all the right things, that everything was fine, but she had sounded anxious.
Nick had reacted like a man who suddenly discovered the site of an itch and realised that he could reach to scratch it. Sitting on his leather swivel chair, feet carelessly propped up on his gleaming, mahogany desk, he had immediately and piously promised to look in on her.
‘You wouldn’t want to have filming ruined because you’re worried about what’s going on over here,’ he had soothed. His prospect of a weekend of solid work, interrupted only by a stuffy Saturday night do, which he had reluctantly agreed to purely for diplomatic reasons, suddenly brightened considerably.
He wasn’t entirely sure why he could be bothered to hunt down a woman who rubbed him up the wrong way, but when it came to members of the opposite sex he rarely questioned his responses, safe in the knowledge that his gut feelings had rarely, if ever, let him down. Granted his gut feelings were usually wrapped up in the normal, testosterone-driven desires for a sexual relationship, but the fact that Rose was out of the ordinary in that respect didn’t put him off. She had been on his mind, for whatever reason, and the fastest way to solve that problem would be to hunt her down. And Lily was a very handy go-between, giving him an excuse he might not otherwise have had.
‘What the hell is that banging all about?’
‘I told you. Repair work. Minor.’ Rose bristled at the sight of those fabulous eyes sweeping along the banister, up to where a fine shimmer of dust obscured the small upstairs corridor. She wondered what her sister had said to him. God, what if she had begged Nick to check up on her? Lily would have thought nothing of asking such a favour because, in her eyes, Nick wasn’t a shark but some innocuous little minnow, someone who would be happy to do her a small favour. In Lily’s world, everyone was potentially sweet and good because she herself was.
Rose determined that as soon as her sister returned to England, she would personally teach her the ways of the world. Lily might have oodles more experience when it came to men, but her insight into human nature was sadly lacking.
‘Doesn’t sound minor.’
‘You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here. If Lily put you up to this, then there’s no need to be concerned.’
‘Even though your house is falling down?’
‘My house is not falling down!’
Nick had forgotten how easily the woman bristled. He had also forgotten how amusing he found the trait. It made a refreshing change from his normal interaction with women, which went along all the usual courses that inevitably led to bed. Bed and all its attendant complications, which he was determined to avoid, at least for a while.
‘Why don’t you get me a cup of coffee and tell me all about it? You look stressed.’
Rose gaped. Of course she was stressed. An army of plumbers was currently bankrupting her and now, on top of that, the last man on earth she wanted to see had waltzed through her front door, brimming over with tea and sympathy because her dear, well-intentioned and hopelessly misguided sister had asked him to. Who wouldn’t be stressed?
And on top of that, she was now embarrassingly aware of her clothes, which advertised someone who was in serious danger of imminent arrest by the fashion police.
While he, she noticed sourly, fashionably dressing down in faded jeans and a rugby sweater, still managed to look fantastic.
‘I’m more stressed now that you’ve shown up,’ Rose told him and Nick immediately jumped on the slip-up.
‘So you’re admitting you’re stressed out. Lily did say you didn’t sound your normal self when she spoke to you on the phone.’
Rose mentally strangled her sister. ‘Hence you were coerced into rushing over here just to make sure I wasn’t about to jump off the nearest bridge.’
‘That’s taking it too far.’ There was an almighty thump from the direction of the dust and Rose groaned, waiting for Andy’s voice to summon her up, probably to confront yet another unexpected problem. Like a routine trip to the dentist, which turned out to reveal a nightmare of hidden problems, her house was beginning to revel in showing its age. A little crack there, a small spot of damp here and suddenly it was as if it had given up the fight and was now determined to fall down around her ears. And as she mounted the stairs she could already see from the grim look on Andy’s face that more bad news was on the way.
‘Sorry, Rose.’
Behind her she was aware that Nick had followed in her hurried wake and she could sense his attention moving up a gear.
‘We’ve discovered something a little unfortunate…’
Rose was too afraid to ask, so she stared at him in mute silence while he shook his head and gave her a look of such profound sympathy that she feared the worst.
‘Asbestos.’
Rose saw the very last of her savings flutter through the window and she balled her hand into a fist and clenched it under her chin. ‘How can that be?’
‘Lodged under the floorboards,’ Andy said kindly. ‘Nothing to look at, but I can spot it a mile away. It’s not everywhere but for the moment we’re going to have to put everything back in place until it’s sorted. We’re not trained to remove it.’
‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re joking.’
‘Wish I could, love.’
‘And I guess you don’t know how much it’ll cost to have it removed?’
He shrugged while behind him his guys were efficiently putting the floorboards back down. ‘Best not lose sleep over that one, considering you’ve got no option…’
Rose saw them out and was too despondent to care whether Nick was hovering in the background with his uninvited sympathy. She didn’t even care that he had been dispatched to check on her as if she were incapable of looking after herself without Lily around.
‘So—’ she turned to face him, slamming the front door shut on her plumbing messengers of bad tidings ‘—there you go. House collapsing. Money disappearing. Stress levels high. In other words lots to report back to Lily, although I’m hoping you’ll dredge up sufficient compassion to know that I would rather she enjoyed all the opportunities opening up for her in America without having to worry about what’s happening to me back here.’
‘How long has this place been falling down?’
Rose shrugged. ‘Weeks. It’s been saving itself for Lily’s departure.’ She sighed, too tired and depressed to argue at his presence in the house, allowing him to witness her plight. She found that he was leading the way to the kitchen, manoeuvring around the cupboards until there was a mug of sweet tea in front of her, and she gratefully swallowed a mouthful.
‘And you never breathed a word to her because you didn’t want her to worry.’
‘There was no point. She would have rushed back over here and that would have been the end of her career, everything she has worked so hard for.’
‘So you decided to shoulder the stress on your own.’ He had shoved back his stool so that he could stretch out his long legs and was looking at her thoughtfully. ‘Except now you’re left facing bills you can’t afford.’
‘I’ll just have to put in a bit more overtime,’ Rose snapped, railing against any suggestion of pity.
‘Quite a bit more,’ Nick commented drily, raising his eyes to the ceiling and the source of her misfortune. Frankly he had zero firsthand experience of a
woman who had to work literally to keep the roof over her head.
‘Yes, well, it’s not impossible.’ She stared at him sourly and with inspired accuracy continued, in a tight voice, ‘I guess this is a completely different world to the one you’re used to, where problems get fixed with the snap of your fingers. I don’t suppose you know too many women who face a struggle to pay unexpected bills and can’t afford the little luxuries you would take for granted.’
‘Attacking me isn’t going to solve your financial crisis.’
Rose didn’t care for the word crisis. It was a little too evocative for comfort. ‘You have to go. I need to phone my bank manager.’
‘On a Saturday?’
‘I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. Of course, I can call my bank manager and take out a loan.’
‘Which will have to be repaid.’
‘But at least I’ll be able to afford the repair work,’ Rose pointed out wearily. ‘And if you’re going to sit there and state the obvious then you can finish that cup of tea and go.’
‘And in the meantime, where do you intend to live?’
‘Here, of course.’
‘Dust everywhere? Hidden dangers under the floorboards? And what about when you get the men in to clear the asbestos? What then? Hang around in a mask?’
Rose felt tears of frustration and anger prick the backs of her eyes. ‘Oh, just leave me alone.’
‘So you can wallow in self-pity?’
‘I do not wallow in self-pity,’ she flung back at him through gritted teeth, shaken out of her despondency by the force of rage. ‘I’ve got my solution and as soon as the banks open on Monday, I’ll be there.’
‘You can’t live here.’
‘Oh, you’re right,’ she sniped with dripping sarcasm. ‘I’ll just get my butler to book me in at the Savoy until everything’s sorted out.’
Nick stifled a grin. ‘Better idea. You need money and I have it.’ ‘Forget it, Nick. You might do favours for my sister, but I don’t need anything from you.’ She gave him a mutinous look, which he chose to ignore.