Rico stabbed a button and the window beside him purred down. ‘I’ll just chuck it out, then, shall I?’
A lean hand closed with purpose round the frame. Involuntarily Bella’s gaze clashed with smouldering golden eyes and she gaped. ‘You’d do it, wouldn’t you?’ Her fingers curved protectively round the disputed article.
‘You drive me crazy sometimes.’ He slung her a fulminating glance and buzzed up the window again.
And sometimes he shook her rigid. He would have thrown it out. He had called her bluff and Bella was not accustomed to having her bluff called. She had finally met her match in temper and tenacity. For the first time she was in a relationship where she was not the dominating partner.
‘Are you planning to pay me rent?’ Rico enquired smoothly.
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’
‘But I sense that money promises to be a bone of contention. If we were married would you feel like this?’
‘Of course not,’ she said, and then wished she hadn’t.
‘Illuminating… Clearly I have to suffer for not offering that band of gold,’ he murmured sardonically.
She ignored the crack about the wedding ring, barely trusting herself to speak.
‘Shut up, Rico…’
‘Maybe I should,’ he conceded silkily. ‘Maybe this is one of those times when you need to make allowances for me.’
Bella was seething. She gritted her teeth.
‘This promises to be a deeply challenging relationship. I’m used to having my own way,’ he volunteered unapologetically.
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
Silence fell. She got lost in her own thoughts. She studied Cleo with far less judgemental eyes than usual. ‘I go with my feelings,’ her mother had said. And that was exactly what Bella was doing with Rico, had done with Rico even in that wretched container when they’d first made love. No wonder that emotion-driven surrender had filled her with turmoil. Bella always liked to know where she was going. She liked important things cut and dried. But now she had a future in front of her that was a giant unknown.
She surfaced from her introspection as the limousine purred through tall, electronic gates and up a long, winding drive—the Winterwood estate, she gathered, scanning the great sweep of landscaped parkland with curious eyes. In the early summer sunlight of late afternoon the setting was idyllic.
‘Do you like the country?’
Bella shrugged a narrow shoulder, struggling not to gape as a vast ancestral pile in stone swam into view round the next bend. It was a magnificent house, designed with all the grace and understated elegance of the eighteenth century. The limousine swept up onto the gravelled frontage and even the soft crunch of the wheels somehow sounded filthy rich. She moistened suddenly dry lips, quite overpowered. What the heck was she doing here with him?
She was wearing a denim skirt with a carefully frayed hem and a T-shirt. She had no make-up on. Her hair was all mussed—his fault. And there he was, immaculate as usual, all sleek and sophisticated in a pearl-grey suit that fitted like a glove and screamed expensive tailoring. They were the original odd couple. If she lost him at a party, she would be thrown out as a gatecrasher.
The chauffeur opened the door. Bella stepped out, feeling more and more as though she had stepped into Brideshead Revisited. And then she saw the rosebeds and grimaced.
‘What’s wrong?’ He sounded incredibly anxious, as if he was primed to her every move and change of expression.
‘Rico, roses are supposed to riot, not march in lines like soldiers. That looks like council planting at its worst.’ Then she flushed. ‘Sorry, that wasn’t very polite of me.’
He smiled at her. ‘I don’t expect you to be polite—’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘What I meant was…’ he placed an arm around her narrow back ‘…you just say what you think. It’s a very unusual trait in the world I move in—’
‘Sure, you know loads of dreadful people who have tact and good manners!’
‘I like your honesty. It disconcerts me from time to time,’ he murmured, ‘but I find it very attractive.’
‘Why are you being so nice all of a sudden?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘This is going to be your home. I want you to relax here, not behave like a guest,’ he asserted.