“So do I,” Rosie said quietly. Did he think that she didn’t know about the way he had strung her along? Did he really imagine that he was as unblemished as pure snow?
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Rosie muttered. “It’s just exhausting arguing with you. It’s not my fault Mandy left me this cottage, and it’s not my fault that I’m grateful that she did and that I want to live in it. I just don’t accept that you have to treat me like dirt because you happen to disapprove.”
“Why did you decide to up sticks and come to London? Why didn’t you stay put and try and do something nearer to where you grew up?”
“Sorry?” Rosie blustered. She looked at him narrowly, searching his face for more cold, biting dislike and was disconcerted to find none there. There might not have been any warmth but for the moment at least his icy contempt was not in evidence.
“Call me a masochist,” Angelo drawled, “But I’m curious to discover what makes you tick.”
“Why?”
“When I so completely fail to read a person, I like to work out where I went wrong.” He shrugged his broad shoulders.
“You mean so that you don’t make the same mistake twice?”
“You’re a one-off, never-to-be-forgotten learning curve,” Angelo said with a cutting lack of emotion. “Believe me, I won’t be repeating the mistakes I made with you, but I’m still curious.” And he was, because her personality now seemed to fall in place. Her vigour, her stubborn refusal to conform to what other people demanded, her ability to challenge him without fear of consequences. “Where exactly did you grow up?”
Rosie sighed. If he wanted the full low-down on her background, then she would give it to him. It would be cathartic. In fact, it might even help her get over him. Every time she made the mistake of calling up that image of him in her head, which still seemed to happen with alarming regularity, she would picture him turning away from her in disgust at the person he now knew she was—someone so out of his league that it was laughable. “On a very rough council estate,” she told him, daring him to snigger.
“Yet you managed to get out.”
“If you don’t get out when you’re young, then you never get out. Have I managed to satisfy your curiosity? Because I’m beginning to feel a little tired. It’s been a long day. I just want to go to bed now, get some rest.” She stretched, stifled a yawn and watched him sideways as he rose to his feet and prowled for a few seconds around the room.
“It’s all very bland, isn’t it?” he mused. “No pictures, no photos.” He turned to look at her. “Amanda could have done this up however she wanted, and yet she chose to do as little as possible with the decor once the renovations had been completed. Why do you think that is?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Rosie returned neutrally.
“And will you be overhauling the place once you move in?”
“I probably won’t have the money,” Rosie said bluntly.
“You came to London to make your fortune. Now you can’t wait to leave, even though you’ll end up jobless here, trying to make ends meet. What are you running away from?”
“I’m not running away from anyone!” Rosie answered a little too quickly, and Angelo raised his eyebrows in a question.
“I don’t believe I suggested that you were running away from a person, did I?”
Flustered, Rosie glared at him. What was he playing at? Was he trying to find chinks in her armour so that he could exploit them at a later date? How had the man she had fallen head over heels in love with morphed into this cold stranger? Scratch that, she told herself angrily. She knew how and, furthermore, if she had been his learning curve, then he had certainly been hers!
“Because it is a man you’re running away from, isn’t it?” he continued silkily.
Lost in her own thoughts and wrong-footed by the way he had zoomed straight in to form the right diagnosis behind her eagerness to leave London—scoring a direct hit, in fact—Rosie was hardly aware of him approaching her until she realised that he was standing right in front of her. If she reached out just slightly with her hand, she would be able to touch his hard, muscled chest. He was now her enemy, yet she was suddenly overcome with such a wave of yearning that her mouth went dry and her ability to think seemed to disappear. She edged back and bumped into the wall.
“I don’t know what gives you that idea,” she breathed jerkily.
“Your boss, is it? Mr Helpful who has so many useful connections in this part of the world?” His veiled, brooding eyes took in everything, from the way she failed to quite meet his gaze, to the nervous way she moistened her lips with her tongue. “Except why are you running from him if he’s that terrific? Have you suddenly decided that you’ve made a mistake? Is he married? Some poor sucker with a couple of kids and a long-suffering wife back home?”
“I am certainly not having an affair with Julian!” She wanted to yell at him that he had no right to jump to conclusions like that, to speculate on her private life. Except they shared a history and, even though it had ended in bitterness, she could feel it too, the way it wrapped its tentacles around them, making it hard to remain detached. Or at least, that was how it was for her.
“And I would never sleep with a married man. Don’t you know me at all?”
“A question I could debate for hours.” The colour had rushed to her cheeks and her full lips were parted, probably on the onset of another verbal attack. Whatever he thought he knew or didn’t know about her, right at this very moment in time he was certain of one thing—she was as vibrantly alive to his presence as he was to hers. The air between them was so charged that it almost crackled, and her body was leaning towards him, even though the expression on her face told him that she was trying desperately to back off...
Never before had he felt such an all-consuming urge to take a woman to bed, to make love to her until she was speechless. He was aware that he was breathing heavily, that he couldn’t drag his eyes away from her flushed face.
“Angelo.” Rosie was shocked at the sound of her own voice, husky and tremulous and shamefully provocative. She raised her hand and half-closed her eyes as she felt the warmth of his chest under her fingers. She didn’t know why she was doing this. There was way too much water under the bridge for them even to have a passing acquaintance. Yet her whole body seemed to reach for him of its own accord.
Her hand on him set off a series of intense flashbacks in Angelo’s head. It was almost as though he had been in limbo for three years, waiting to recapture the feel of her. It shocked him.
He curled his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away from him. It took almost more effort than he felt himself capable of, but he did it, then he stepped back and stared down at her with a cold, shuttered expression.
“Much as I appreciate the offer, darling, I’m going to have to turn you down. I can’t help but think that your sudden interest in me might just have a little too much to do with getting me onside just in case you end up needing to save your skin.”
Rosie’s eyes flew open and she stared back at him, aghast and mortified. She wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. When she tried to say something, nothing emerged, and she kept staring in mute silence as his mouth curled into a half-smile and he inclined his head, before he turned around and walked out of the cottage.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHICHEVER WAY SHE tried to work the figures, the maths just wasn’t adding up.
Rosie groaned with frustration and shoved the lined pad away from her. She had been back for the best part of a week and it hadn’t taken long for her to grudgingly acknowledge that Angelo had been spot-on when he had listed the catalogue of potential financial disasters facing her if she moved to the cottage.
She might enjoy the dream of the simple life, away from London, but how was she ever goin
g to be able to finance it? Julian had been sympathetic when she had explained the situation and, yes, he had some contacts. But, as he had reasonably pointed out, what restaurant owner was going to hand over lists of potential customers to someone they would see as a rival?
“You’d make a brilliant caterer,” he had said, sitting her down while he’d fussed over a roux that was giving him trouble. “But caterers need capital. Special equipment for a start, depending on how many people you plan on catering for. Then there are the health and safety checks. Of course, you could always source customers who are happy for you to cook on their premises. Failing that, I could put you in touch with one of my mates who runs a fish restaurant...though it’ll be a bit of a commute, to be honest.”
“I don’t own a car,” Rosie had said, thoroughly deflated.
“Could be a small technical hitch, in that case. Bus and cab might do it but then you’d have precious little money left over... Now, taste this roux, darling, and tell me what you think...”
Jack had offered to lend her some money but she had refused. He and Brian were saving for a deposit on a house and Lord only knew when she would be able to pay him back, whatever money he lent her.
All told, it was hopeless.
Rosie felt herself on the verge of tears. She would have to sell the cottage back to Angelo. She pictured his look of smug satisfaction as she stood before him, head lowered, admitting defeat before she had even begun. And, worse than that, she would have to face the thought of him smirking, laughing at her for having made a pass at him, a pass that had been politely declined.
How could she have been so crazy? After everything that had happened between them, how could she have flipped and allowed herself to be swept up in an atmosphere of...what, exactly? Mutual sexual attraction? Or had that been her mind playing tricks on her? And, even if she hadn’t been mistaken, if he had felt some twinge of attraction then what of it? In the light of everything that had happened between them, it didn’t mean anything, as amply proved by his response.
She tried not to think about it. Every time the memory of that ten-second error of judgement began surfacing, she shoved it back down and thought about something else.
Now, she strolled absentmindedly towards the window to draw the curtains and thought about the figures that weren’t adding up. Taking everything into account and looking at the best possible outcome, there was still a worrying shortfall in cash. She wondered whether her bank manager would be amenable to lending her the money to kick-start a business. She was a chef, working for not very much and without a great deal of experience. Could she be called a safe bet? And, if she couldn’t squeeze a loan out of her bank, she would surely need to dig into her savings to get a car. Transport to and from the cottage would be impossible otherwise. There was no nearby bus route and a bicycle would be inadequate.
All over again, she began doing the sums in her head. Through a chink in the curtain, something caught the corner of her eye and she peered through, standing to one side. At just after five, it was dark. It was her day off and, having spent it in front of her computer, her calculator and pads of paper, she had been oblivious to the day passing by, only vaguely aware of the sound of rain gusting along the pavement outside.
Now her heart picked up a pace as she stared at Ian’s car. He hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that he was outside her house. Not directly outside, but parked a little way down the street. He had a small red sports car and she would have recognised it a mile away because on their one and only date he had spent much of the evening boring her rigid with descriptions of it. He had then insisted later, as she had backed off in an attempt to beat a hasty retreat, that she come and inspect the car for herself. He was lounging behind the wheel. Did he know that she had seen him? Did he even know that she was in the house or was he waiting for her to come back from work—and how long had he been there?
Not knowing whether she should go out and confront him, or stay put and hope he’d get bored and drive off, Rosie nervously headed for the kitchen, mobile phone clutched in her hand.
Her fertile imagination went into overdrive, even though she told herself that there was no point imagining the worst. She knew that she would have to do something. Ian had managed to get into the house once before and, frankly, it was no great achievement. The house was poorly maintained and not exactly Fort Knox. The thought of him breaking in while she was asleep sent a shiver of pure fear through her. She could call the police, but would they come? They hadn’t taken her complaint seriously before. Why would they suddenly decide to now? She hadn’t reported his previous break-in, choosing instead to stick her head in the sand and pretend that she could deal with the situation.
As she turned over the various possibilities in her head, the phone buzzed in her hand and she stared down at it in horror, but it wasn’t Ian. It was Angelo. The relief of seeing his name pop up on the screen sent every negative thought about him flying out of her head. She forgot her moment of humiliation. She forgot how much he disliked her and how much he had betrayed her trust.
“Angelo!”
* * *
Angelo wasn’t quite sure why he had called her. He had been proud of the will power it had taken to walk away from the invitation that had clearly been given to him the last time they had met, but pride had made an uncomfortable bed companion. Rosie had returned to his life and, like it or not, he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head. The fact that the air between them hummed and sizzled with untapped sexual energy had been made even worse by the naked desire he had seen flare in her eyes as she had gazed up at him with her hand burning a hole through his shirt.
He had always had rigid control over his life, over his actions and over his behaviour. He had prided himself on his single-minded drive. It was what had propelled him further and further away from the life of hardship into which he had been born. And then she had entered it four years ago and he had allowed his control to slip. There was no way he intended to repeat the mistake! And yet, back she was, screwing with his head.
It enraged him to think that he had deliberately gone on a date with a sexy blonde beauty two evenings ago, a friend of a friend of a friend, and had proceeded to spend the entire time with his mind on Rosie. A follow-up date had not been arranged.
One way or another, he would have to eliminate her from his life once again. He would have to press ahead with his argument that it would be better to sell the cottage to him than to risk trying to move and set up a business that might be doomed to failure. He was a brilliant negotiator. How hard would it be to negotiate her off his land?
And so on the spur of the moment, on a Friday afternoon, he had picked up his phone and called, and the instant he heard her voice he knew that something wasn’t right.
It was shaky, high-pitched. He shot out of his chair and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window that gave his office a magnificent view of London’s Shard and its surroundings.
“Ever enthusiastic to hear my voice,” he drawled, wondering whether he had imagined a certain amount of panic when she had answered his call and then deciding that, yes, he had imagined it. If he hadn’t, then he refused to be sucked into her mood swings. “We need to talk about the boundary lines around the cottage. They were never discussed when I gave the place to Amanda. She wanted land. I have a lot. I gave her a few acres in an informal arrangement. If you insist on living there, something more accurate is going to have to be worked out by lawyers. It might prove an additional expense for you, but it’s essential.”
“Angelo, could you come over? I’m at home. I had the day off work. Look, I know you’re probably busy...” And only got on the phone to issue another threat, another warning of the idiocy of refusing your offer of a buy-out. “But it’s important.” She knew that her voice was cracking and that she had to get it together.
“What’s going on?” This time there was urgency in Angelo�
�s voice. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, or even if this was some crazy act on her part, but he was already moving to get his jacket, working out in his head the meetings he would have to cancel.
“Remember when you asked me whether I wanted the cottage because I was running away from someone?”
“Keep talking. However,” he felt compelled to qualify, just in case she got it into her head that he was in any way, shape or form, malleable, “don’t think you can play the sympathy or the guilt card and sucker me in to taking a soft line with you about this whole issue.”
“Shut up and listen to me.”
No one spoke to Angelo like that. Amongst rivals in the cut-throat world of high finance and frenetic mergers and acquisitions, he was feared. Amongst women, he was treated with adulation, awe and a fawning desire to please. It occurred to him that that had never been Rosie’s preferred style. It made sense when you considered that she had grown up in the school of hard knocks, just as he had.
For a few seconds, he rushed down Memory Lane at breakneck speed, remembering the way she used to tease him with no attempt to pander to his power; the way she used to argue if she disagreed with something he might have said, the way she had laid down ground rules when they had first started going out together and he had shown up late for their first date.
“I’m listening but it’d better be good.”
“I was running away from someone—and that someone is sitting outside my house right now and I’m...I’m a little scared.”
“Scared? Explain.” He found that he was moving quickly now, exiting his office, only pausing to jot a few lines on some paper while his secretary looked at him in astonishment: he was leaving the office and wouldn’t be back till Monday.
“I’ve had some problems with him in the past,” Rosie confessed shakily. She knew that she was succumbing to the illusion that she was safe with Angelo. Maybe in the good old days, but not now, yet her heightened fear and her isolation in the house worked together with those remembered feelings to produce a mix which she was powerless to resist. Just hearing his dark, deep voice on the other end of the phone was strangely calming. Or maybe it was the fact that she was talking to someone. Maybe talking to anyone would have done the trick, although deep down she wasn’t convinced.
A Deal with Di Capua Page 6