Tangling with the London Tycoon

by Suzi Jennings

  She folded her arms, one booted foot tapping, her lips thinning as she considered her response.

  The silence festered between them as he put the casserole in the microwave and assembled butter, cream, salt, and pepper for the potatoes. If he was going to be eating them under siege, they were going to be the most decadent he could make them.

  Kitty continued to simmer along with the potatoes.

  He rifled through the utensil drawer for the masher, then placed it gently beside his ingredients.

  “Mister Domesticity,” she said, still spoiling for a fight. He ignored the words, decided to ignite the heat.

  “I’m the hypocrite who shaved his head, remember, Ms. Tell It Like It Is.” He fought to keep his tone mild. How he ached to confront whoever had caused this hurt and anger in her. “It’s your turn to talk.”

  She drew a ragged breath, then the mutinous silence continued.

  “Let me tell it like I see it, then.” He knifed the potatoes. Cooked. He drained them, added the yummy stuff, and picked up the masher. “You,” he said, pointing the masher at her, not flinching from her dark-eyed glare, “are scared of memories you keep locked away in a box that looks a lot like my house.”

  He mashed forcefully. Metal on metal.

  “Mr. Smarty,” she said, softer, still hurting.

  He piled the mash onto his plate. Shoved on oven gloves, removed his casserole dish from the microwave, and opened the lid.

  “Perfect,” he inhaled appreciatively.

  He ladled a generous portion of lamb onto the plate, poured thick, rich gravy over the mash.

  The laden plate would feed them both. He took knife, fork, and plate across the kitchen to a small glass table, pulled out two chairs, and sat at one.

  “My mother loved to eat here, looking out to the garden.” He didn’t turn to look at her, just talked as he loaded his fork. He chewed and swallowed, barely tasting his usual favorite, hoping Kitty would join him.

  “It’s her family house; she inherited it, so I can be here knowing my father never was.”

  Slowly, Kitty’s heels clicked across the tiles. She slid onto the chair beside him, skewed sideways in the seat, ready to run.

  Rosco loaded another forkful. Chewed, enjoyed a hint of rosemary this time.

  Kitty settled back a little in her chair, watchful, but still with him. The next mouthful delivered the full flavor of the lamb as it hit his taste buds.

  “When I left here after the pre-wedding shoot, I promised myself I’d never come back,” she said, her voice flat.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry my house upsets you. Sorry I gave you a hard time that day.”

  He toyed with another juicy piece of lamb. “But I’m not sorry you’re here now. Would you have come if I’d told you where we were going for lunch?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you would. I would have played the hypocrite with the shaved head card sooner.” He risked a grin, snaffled another mouthful.

  She smiled ruefully back. “I deserved that.”

  “You also deserve to eat. Courage, something I suspect you have truckloads of, needs to be fed.”

  He speared a piece of lamb, held his hand under the gravy-laden morsel, and raised it to her lips.

  There was a bit of her sparkly spirit back as she obediently opened her mouth.

  “A packet mix, Rosco?”

  “Made from scratch,” he said mock-outraged, thrilled she was sparring with him again.

  “Delicious. More,” she commanded, opening her mouth again.

  He plied her with gravy-soaked mash and decided to extract some answers to the questions that most worried him.

  He held another forkful up to her still stubborn-looking mouth. “What happened on the nights you weren’t fed and wanted?” A muscle in his jaw tensed, shooting pain up to his temple. “Were you hurt…?” He left the word “abused” unsaid. Too powerful to say—although he’d deal with it if he had to.

  She turned away from the food. “I was sent to the movies. In a taxi.”

  “You weren’t ever hurt?” He had to know what he was dealing with. What she was dealing with.

  “No.” She shook her head then swept her hair up into a messy coil, repeatedly dragging stray strands up and up, off her taut face.

  She gave it one final vicious twist and let it fall. “No need to feel you have to be my big brother, Rosco. I looked after myself.”

  He tossed the fork onto the plate, the latest mouthful uneaten. “Brotherly is one thing I never feel for you.” His temple continued to throb. He rubbed at it in frustration, tossing up where to take this next. To bed? Not yet.

  “I refused to show fear, ever,” she continued, pride at the edges of hurt. “They did me a favor. I fell in love with film.”

  “That’s when the photography started?” he asked gently. So many gaps, she seemed to have started at the end, but he’d gladly circle with her.

  Kitty nodded with the hint of a smile.

  “I’m a bit confused.” He was convinced the film and photography thing was a red herring. “Why would you show fear at the movies?”

  “They sent me in the dark.”

  “Alone? In a taxi?”

  “Yes, but the movie theater people looked after me. They knew who my mother was.” She drew a bracing breath. “It was a little art-house theater a few blocks from home. They gave me popcorn.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten. Then I went to a country boarding school, joined the photography club, and kept out of my mother’s social life.”

  “Hell, Kitty.” Disgust forced him to his feet. “Your mother and my father were made for each other.”

  He looked down at her, and his heart clenched. That lovely, lively face looked tired, but there was more to this story.

  “I have a challenge for you,” he said. Kitty narrowed her eyes at him, but he had her attention. “Walk around this house with me, free up those memories.”

  “Why?” She morphed into a petulant teenager, twirled a tendril of her hair. Guilt tweaked his conscience as concern for her was equaled by his own caution. He wanted answers for himself.

  “Your reward will be to choose a new photo of me for my website.”

  She stood. “Completely my choice. Or no go.”

  Heaven help him, he knew he’d have a high price to pay for his “non-brotherly” concern.

  “Deal.” He took her hand. She didn’t resist, so he took the lead. “Let’s start where we are. Is this anything like the kitchen you grew up in?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Kitty transported herself back in time, Rosco’s warm hand giving her strength.

  She scanned the cream-and-glass room with its adjoining eating area looking over the garden and shook her head. “Our kitchen was small, lots of dark wood, and only one window looking out.”

  “No bad memories here?”

  “No, only bad cooking,” she joked to lighten the worry on his face.

  He squeezed her hand and led her out toward the foyer. Kitty stiffened. “Not so good for you here?” he said.

  “No.” She cleared her throat, damned if she was losing this challenge. “No.”

  “What happened in your foyer?”

  Kitty shivered, her overcoat no protection against bitter childhood memories. “It is exactly the same proportions. Same acoustics.” She gave Rosco a self-conscious shrug. “We did a lot of yelling at each other when no one else was around. And I wasn’t allowed upstairs when guests were there—adults only.”

  He nodded. No hint of judgment, but the pinch of controlled anger tightened his jaw. “Okay, where did you sleep?”

  “Downstairs bedroom.” She swung their joined hands, pointing beyond the stairway, and he took her there. She followed, apprehensive. The room had been her haven, but she hadn’t always felt safe even there.

  Rosco opened the door and a light-filled space made her gasp. “It’s beautiful. Same styling as your mother’s countr
y house.” She walked in slowly.

  “We made-over the whole back of the house. Living room and kitchen both made bigger and lighter, and this room was built out into a garden suite for my mother.”

  “It’s lovely. Pretty but unfussy.”

  “What about yours?”

  “Small, dark, covered in posters. My mother said she should have had shares in a doubled-sided sticky tape company.”

  “She didn’t stop you decorating?”

  “No. She didn’t care as long as I kept out of the way when she had parties, or when her boyfriend of the moment was around.” Kitty couldn’t hide her sadness.

  Rosco squeezed her hand, and Kitty let him keep holding it. It felt safe.

  “I didn’t have a lock on my door and once, when they forgot to send me away, my mother’s drunken boyfriend started yelling at me. I had to drag furniture in front of the door.” She closed her eyes and allowed herself to remember.

  “Yelling, banging on the door that didn’t stop. I had an old set of drawers I pulled the drawers out of, dragged it in front of the door, replaced the drawers, and filled them with all my heaviest books. Just as well I was a reader.”

  Rosco inhaled sharply as he tightened his fingers around hers again.

  “Brave.”

  Her heart thumped. “I was scared,” she whispered. “I was fifteen when it happened and home for the holidays.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I jumped out the window. I’d made a gap in the fence behind the garden shed, so I knew I could escape. No one saw me.”

  “Then what?”

  “I caught the train to boarding school. Joined the holiday group.”

  Kitty pulled away from Rosco, feeling some of the weight of the past leave her.

  “I was lucky. My mother agreed I could stay at the school hostel after that.”

  Rosco sighed, and she removed her hand from his.

  “Back to the foyer,” she said, turning on her heel. She didn’t want his sympathy before she’d finished re-assembling her past, separating it from his house. “The last time I saw my mother we were screaming at each other from the top and bottom of the stairs.”

  “Your last memory of your home?”

  “Yes. Nearly fifteen years ago.” Kitty stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “I never went back.” Not after her school counselor and a policeman had accompanied her to collect her belongings. Her mother hadn’t stopped them, but she hadn’t been happy. Or sober.

  “I walked away,” she said, climbing up a couple of steps then turning to look down at him. “And I didn’t stop until you answered your door, looking sexy and cross and dismissing me with your angry Irish accent.”

  Rosco looked uncomfortable and about to deny his anger. Kitty raised her hand, palm toward him. “I’m not finished.” She frowned at his strong face softened by those brown waves curling softly now, near his collar. “You’re a separate challenge, Rosco Redmond. But you’re not part of my past.”

  In fact, she’d never known anyone quite like him. He might not be part of her past, but he was a big part of why she wanted to leave that past behind her now.

  Really leave it behind.

  Not just run from it. She’d fooled herself about that; she had been running ever since.

  She stepped down, back to the marble floor, and walked toward the front door.

  “Are you leaving before you’ve finished?” Rosco asked, challenge roughening his tone.

  “No.” She turned toward him, irritated he’d think she would. “I’m starting again.”

  She walked to the hall table and looked at herself in the mirror above it. “My mother was blond and beautiful, the ‘It’ girl of the catwalk and fashion mags. I’ve always been glad I don’t look like her.”

  She caught Rosco’s eye in the mirror and grinned. “No need to shave my head.”

  He smiled back, a complication shared.

  Kitty undid her coat, posed in front of the mirror, hands on hips. “She taught me how to stand, how to use light, how to make clothes look good.” Kitty swung her coat, evaluated her reflection. “Life Skills 101 according to Jacqueline Mayfair. Exhausting stuff, having to look perfect.”

  The mirror blurred, anger biting again. “I was a cute accessory when I was little. Then I was living proof she was getting older.”

  She turned back to Rosco. “My mother did her best. She bought her house herself when she was young and famous. She gave me everything money could buy, until she started running out of it. She never meant to hurt me. She never meant for the crazy guys at her parties to hurt me, either, she was just too drunk and stoned to notice.”

  “You deserved better.” Rosco’s voice was strong, affirming, his arms folded across his chest, still standing at the bottom of the stairs. “You were a child.”

  “I grew up quickly,” she said, inspecting her reflection again. “Classic psychological stuff.” She sighed, leaning into the mirror. “I have her eyebrows, that’s all.”

  “I’ll hide my razor.” Dry. She loved his dryness.

  “My mother isn’t in the mirror. Never has been.” Sadness washed through her, a wave of spent emotion. “And she isn’t in your house. This space just triggered memories.”

  “You were a child,” he said again, patiently. “You were powerless then. Now you’re in charge.” He took a step toward her. “Do you want to leave?”

  “No. I want to see everything.”

  She held out her hand to him. She still needed his support. “I’m all talked out. But I’m ready to move on. Show me upstairs.” Forbidden adult territory.

  …

  Rosco linked his fingers with hers and walked her up the grand staircase. It was one of the most striking features of these Georgian townhouses; no wonder it had left an impression.

  The height and curve of it held its own drama. For a vulnerable, unhappy child the echoes of raised voices and loneliness would have magnified the conflict.

  He soothed her hand with his thumb, the rhythm circling with his need for her. A need he could no longer deny. Her ability to grow so strongly from her childhood neglect only increased his admiration for her.

  He watched her taking each step beside him, her coat no longer hiding her long legs beneath the same short black dress she’d worn at the wedding.

  The orange zipper, closed snug at her neck, tempted him.

  He wanted her.

  All of her. But not just for a night; definitely not for only lunchtime. Not without really knowing each other first. They weren’t there yet.

  “Three bedrooms to the left,” he said at the top of the stairs. “One bedroom and my office to the right.”

  …

  Kitty tried to ignore the sensation of Rosco’s thumb caressing her hand. Her response wasn’t limited to that one spot. Her whole body began to fizz with little rockets of warmth and desire. She was having another Rosco moment.

  She felt a rush of romantic adventure, all new, unchartered, with no guidebook, and free of the past.

  Almost.

  “Show me your office,” she said, feeling suddenly hot in her outdoor coat. She wasn’t going anywhere near a bedroom. “You’ve seen my home studio. I want to see where you work.”

  It was at the front of the house, a room of gracious proportions, with two rectangular arch-topped windows looking over the cobblestone street below.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said, peeking past the door as Rosco’s hand led her slowly into the room. She resisted following him for a moment and their arms stretched apart.

  “Your mother designed this for you.” There was no doubt in her mind. Designed with love. An entire wall of shelves and cupboards, creamy white, classically solid, faced her.

  A massive glass desk with chunky steel supports occupied the back wall and, tucked in behind the door, another floor to ceiling work unit housed all the latest office equipment.

  Rosco reeled her in, secured her body next to his. “It’s handsome,” she said, sque
ezing his hand.

  “Even better with you in it.”

  “Corny line.”

  “True, to be sure.”

  “Ah, you know I love it when you vamp up the Irish.” She felt her cheeks flush as her heart leaped to its own River Dance beat and she couldn’t stop a grin at her fanciful imagination.

  She turned her attention to the window end of the room and ended the flirty banter that had ramped up the tingle factor in their linked hands.

  She walked toward the windows, pulling Rosco with her, and stepped around a smart sitting area. A two-seater couch and two single chairs, cream with brown trim, were arranged around a glass-and-steel coffee table.

  Her fingers caressed the soft folds of the curtains made of heavy cream brocade fabric, thickly cut with a modern geometric pattern, as she peeped down at the elegant street beneath them. All was serene on the cobbles below as a limousine with darkened windows purred silently away from the curb. The possibility of paparazzi lenses hidden behind those windows suddenly worried her.

  She pulled back sharply, turning toward Rosco’s solid chest. “This beats my industrial, exposed brick look.” She smiled up at him, determined to shut out the world as the demands their linked hands were generating between them could no longer be ignored.

  Rosco met her smile with smoky-blue eyes. He hooked his finger through the orange zipper loop at her collar and pulled her to him.

  She joined him on a sigh as he slipped his hands beneath her coat and molded their span to her waist. They warmed her bones to melting.

  “Mr. Sexy,” she whispered as his mouth covered hers with a gossamer kiss. She cradled his head, entwined her fingers in his hair, pulling him closer. “More.”

  “Soon.” He roamed away, brushing his lips along her jawline, her cheekbone, her eyebrow.

  “You could shave one eyebrow.” She felt his smile.

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Too late?” he asked, the question a mischievous murmur as his lips grazed the side of her neck, then back up to her mouth. So slow. Too slow.

  The sparks fizzing in her belly ignited, and she tugged his hair, demanding more.

  “Too late,” she whispered, and caught the soft pout of his lower lip in the kiss she’d wanted since he’d met her by the river, holding a goldfish bowl crammed full of gerberas.