She would have to go out, although without a car she had no idea how that would be achieved, and she was actively deliberating whether to call a taxi back or not when the doorbell rang.
Rosie froze instantly. It couldn’t be Ian. Could it? She realised with dismay that thoughts of him were never too far away. Just in case, she tiptoed to the front door and quietly secured the chain before opening the door a crack.
Although it was only a little after five-thirty, it was already dark, a bottomless darkness quite unlike the darkness in London which was always punctuated with light from street lamps.
Whoever her caller was, he was standing to one side, just out of direct sight. Panic flared through her. She struggled for reason and told herself that there was no way that Ian could be standing outside her front door. It just wasn’t possible! Yet, hadn’t he found a way into her house in London? She wished she had thought to bring something heavy from the kitchen—a frying pan; a rolling pin. Something she could use as a weapon. Even as those thoughts flitted through her head, she was aware that she was over-reacting. She realised just how threatened she had felt by Ian over the months, even though she had stoutly told herself that she had nothing to fear from a guy who was two inches shorter than her and a very slight build.
“Well? Are you going to let me in, Rosie?” Angelo had not been to the cottage for a long time. In fact, he had only been there once, after he had allowed Amanda to have it, and then only to assess what renovations had needed doing. He had never been able to understand her reasons for demanding ownership when she had a perfectly good townhouse in London at her disposal, but then again he had never been one for the country life, despite owning his own country mansion. As investments went, it had served him well although he wouldn’t have chosen to live there if he had had a gun to his head. It was there to appreciate in value and occasionally to host large events that were work-related. Three times a year, high-performing employees were treated to an all-expenses-paid weekend.
“What are you doing here?” Rosie marvelled that she could ever have imagined her caller to be Ian when the most obvious candidate was Angelo. Her irrational fear disappeared to be replaced by something else, a darker and more dangerous emotion that made her heart begin to beat erratically in her chest. He had stepped out of the shadows and she felt ridiculously overwhelmed by his tall, powerful presence.
“Didn’t I tell you that I wanted to be here when you decided to have a look at your ill-gotten legacy?” He placed his hand flat against the door. In truth, there had been no need to rush down to Cornwall, but the second he had heard her voice down the end of the phone he had had no choice. It infuriated him.
“And why the latch?” he asked with silky sarcasm. “Left-over caution from having set up camp in a dump where it pays to make sure you know who your caller is before you open the door?”
“You should have told me that you would be coming.” Rosie could hear the breathlessness in her voice, lurking just below the cool control she wanted to impose.
“Why, when the element of surprise is so much more enjoyable? Now, open the door, Rosie. I don’t intend to spend the next hour having a conversation with you on the doorstep.”
Reluctantly, Rosie unhooked the chain and opened the door, stepping aside so that he could brush past her into the hallway. She remained with her back pressed to the closed door, watching him warily as he looked around.
She had no idea what to say. She wondered what was going through his head. The woman he despised was standing in the hallway of a house that wasn’t rightfully hers, given to her in the worst possible circumstances by someone who she hadn’t set eyes on for three years. She couldn’t drag her eyes away from his starkly handsome face and she flushed with embarrassment when eventually he finished his visual tour of the hallway and caught her staring at him.
“I think Mr Foreman must have arranged to have it all cleaned.” Rosie rushed into speech whilst propelling herself away from the door towards the kitchen, simply because her legs felt too wobbly to maintain an upright position, even with the aid of the door to lean against.
“I did.” Angelo hadn’t known what to expect and he was surprised to find such muted colours and lack of personality. “I had my housekeeper for the main house bring a team in last weekend. Tell me, have you unpacked and settled in yet? You already look at home here, although maybe I’m being a little over-imaginative in thinking that it must be slightly strange walking around the house that once belonged to your friend. My mistake, your ex-friend. Or perhaps the ex makes it a little easier?” He sat on one of the kitchen chairs facing her and sprawled back, angling the chair so that he could stretch out his long legs, which he loosely crossed at the ankles.
At the funeral, she had been dressed in sombre colours as befitting a woman in so-called mourning. Now, she was back in casual attire, a pair of faded jeans, a loose, faded cotton sweater and trainers. She had always gone for the natural look and clearly nothing there had changed. He caught himself wondering whether she was wearing a bra and gritted his teeth together at his lapse in focus.
“I’m here to discuss relieving you of the property,” Angelo drawled into the tense, lengthening silence. “I’ve spoken to Foreman and the will is sound. Unacceptable though I find it, you are the rightful owner of this place along with six acres of unmaintained land. Your ship’s come in big time—no more toiling in a kitchen trying to make ends meet; no more pretending to enjoy getting hot and sweaty behind a stove while someone yells at you that you need to pick up speed and get your orders to the table.” She still blushed. She was as tough as old boots and yet she still blushed. Amazing.
“I know you’re probably going to be furious with me, Angelo, but I don’t think I want to sell this cottage to you.” She held her breath and waited for him to retaliate but he continued to sit there, lethally silent.
“And why would that be?” he asked softly.
Rosie shrugged and lowered her eyes. “I think it would do me good to leave London,” she said truthfully. “I love my job but there are one or two things...happening.”
“If you’re trying to rouse my curiosity so that you can launch into a sob story, then you can forget it. Not interested. I have plans for this land and my plans don’t include you living on it.”
“If you had plans, then why didn’t you approach Amanda for the land when she was alive? Why wait until now?”
Angelo was outraged that she dared even voice the question. It had been proven that the only thing she was interested in was money. Was she playing hardball in the hope that whatever financial deal he might offer could be upped? Or was she planning on sitting on the property until she was satisfied that it had reached its maximum value? To look at her no one would ever have guessed in a month of Sundays that she was capable of such cold-blooded calculation, yet he knew better.
“Amanda wanted this place. I gave it to her. It was not within my remit to try and wheedle it away from her for development. When it comes to you, however, the story is slightly different. And let’s be honest here, Rosie, you can be bought. The only question is how much you’re asking.”
“I resent that.”
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“Why are you still so bitter, Angelo?” She met his eyes and sustained his steady gaze even though she wanted to look away. “You married Mandy. It’s not my fault your marriage didn’t work out.” She felt a rush of nerves as she overstepped the mark from polite conversation to uninvited opinion. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.” Restlessly, she stood up, went to the fridge and opened it, even though there was nothing there to find.
“I know what you think of me, Angelo. You think that you just have to throw money my way and I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Whatever I want?” A vivid image of her back in bed with him flashed through his head with startling clarity. He stood up, turned to her and Rosie gazed back at him with the suffocating feeling of being crowded.
What had that sibilant aside meant? Did he think that she was somehow offering herself to him?
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No? Sure about that?” He shoved his hands into his pockets and leant indolently against the fridge, barring her exit path to the kitchen door. The heightened atmosphere might be utterly inappropriate, but why kid himself? He was enjoying it. He was enjoying playing with the tantalising thought of having her, of seducing her into bed, of once again getting her so mindlessly turned on by him that she could scarcely breathe. He was suddenly so turned on that he could feel his arousal pushing insistently against the zip.
How could desire be so powerful that it could push past hatred to worm its own independent path?
He stepped aside, breaking the electric connection. Hell, what was going on here?
“Don’t you have commitments to the people you work with?” Angelo drawled, giving himself sufficient physical space from her for his erection to subside. “Or do the commitments fall by the wayside when something better happens to come along?”
He strolled out of the kitchen and towards the small sitting room that overlooked the front garden. He knew that she was following him, although the rugs absorbed the sound of her footsteps.