“I have a very understanding boss,” Rosie muttered helplessly. She hovered in the doorway, aware of how dangerous it was to get too close to him. For a second there in the kitchen, she had had a horrible feeling that if he had reached out and touched her, she would have melted, like wax in a hot flame. Did she have no pride or self-respect? Had she been giving off some crazy, subliminal signals that had encouraged him to think that she was still hot for him? Or had she imagined the whole surreal scenario—the lazy way he had looked at her, as though she could be his for the taking?
“I haven’t had a chance—” she fought for composure and was pleased that she didn’t sound as out of control as she felt “—to look outside—but if there’s any chance that I could cultivate the land then I certainly will try and establish myself here. I know that my boss has a lot of contacts in this part of the world. I’m sure we would be able to work out a business proposition that would benefit both of us mutually.” She couldn’t read a thing in his brooding expression. She just knew that she couldn’t let the messy past influence her now. The sooner she made her mind up, the quicker he would stop pursuing her in the hope of being able to buy her off. She couldn’t deal with having him in the same space as her. After all this time, she was still far too vulnerable, even though she told herself that he was hateful, that she was over him, that he was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.
“So you’ll have to give up trying to buy me off.”
“And what happens if your optimistic prediction of a catering business doesn’t materialise? This is your last chance to get your paws on a substantial amount of money. Turn it down now and it won’t come your way again. Of course, you could always sell the house on the open market if it turns out that you need to, but times are tough even in this beauty spot. You could be sitting on bricks and mortar for months, with a floundering catering service and bailiffs banging on your door.”
“Thanks very much for the vote of confidence, Angelo.” There was a time when he would have backed her every inch of the way. She tore her mind away from that and focused on the image of Ian and the shadowy feelings of unease she had been living with for the past few months.
“And what about other commitments you might be leaving behind?” he murmured, his eyes roving lazily over her flushed face. He remembered that feeling he had got when he had asked her about her private life, that very slight pause before she answered. He found that he didn’t much care for a boyfriend in the background, at least not while he was having hot fantasies about her.
“I guess I’ll lose my deposit on the house. My landlord isn’t the most sympathetic person in the world.” Goodbye money she could ill afford, hello debt and a bank loan for a business which, as he had eloquently pointed out, could collapse around her, leaving her in a financial nightmare. She might have inherited a beautiful cottage and she might be intent on living in it, but she wasn’t exactly bringing a great deal of disposable income with her to the table. She had managed to save a little, but how long would that last?
And what if Angelo decided to put a spoke in her wheel? He was rich, powerful, influential and he still hated her after all these years. Would he try and blow her out of the water because she had stubbornly refused to give in to him? Would he stoop that low? How steep was the price might she have to pay for running away from an awkward situation?
“I wasn’t referring to your landlord and the small change you might owe him in a deposit.”
“You might think that a few hundred pounds is small change, but it’s not for me.”
Angelo shot her a contemptuous, curling smile and refrained from telling her that she shouldn’t have squandered the money she had taken from him. His initial reaction, on seeing her for the first time in three years at the funeral, and on hearing of the legacy that had been bequeathed to her, had been one of fury. He had not envisaged her living in the cottage. He would either fight her through the courts and wrench it out of her grasping hands, or he would fling sufficient money her way to make her disappear from his line of vision for good.
He hadn’t banked on the unexpected, uninvited and one-hundred-percent untamed urgency of his physical response to her. Now, he wondered whether it might not be more satisfying to see her fail. He had never considered himself vengeful. Bitter, yes; angry, most definitely; but why waste time and energy on thoughts of revenge? And yet, the possibility of revenge now seemed to be landing neatly in his lap and he would be a saint not to yield to its temptation. Angelo knew for a fact that “saintly” was the last thing he was.
“Actually, I was referring to the man in your life,” he murmured with just the right hint of indifference in his voice.
Rosie wondered what he would say if she told him that she was running away from that particular man. Would it give him a sense of satisfaction? Would he give her a smug lecture on the wheel turning full circle for a woman like her?
“And, like I said to you before, my private life is none of your concern. James, Mr Foreman, tells me that there are a few legalities to go through before I move down here, but I intend to make the move as quickly as possible. I’m just telling you so that you don’t think that you can try and work out a way of scaring me off.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing? Scaring you off?”
“You know it is, Angelo. First you tell me that you’ll pay to get rid of me, and then you tell me that if I don’t agree to sell to you then any business idea I have is doomed to failure.”
“And here I was thinking that I was being realistic.” He wondered if the man she denied having in her life—or rather the man she wanted to keep a secret from him—was her boss. Maybe the guy was married, had kids. It was a distasteful thought and his lips thinned in immediate revulsion at the idea.
“I don’t need you being realistic on my behalf,” Rosie said coolly. “I’ll take my chances.”
“And if it turns out you need a rescue package? I don’t suppose your parents will be able to pick up the pieces.”
“I beg your pardon?” Rosie had no idea what he was talking about and she looked at him in bewilderment. “What parents?”
“The ones you have concealed up north somewhere. An accountant and a primary school teacher, if I’m not mistaken? You made sure never to mention their existence to me when we were going out, but then again, we didn’t do much talking, did we?”
“We talked a lot.” She looked at him and wondered whether he had deliberately demoted their relationship to a purely sexual one in an attempt to hurt her or whether she had misconstrued what they had meant to each other, reading too much into too little. “Who told you that my parents were a... What did you say? A teacher and an accountant?”
“Three guesses. No, you’d probably only need one. Amanda explained that you probably never talked about them because you were worried that I might find them too drab.”
Rosie couldn’t help herself. Even though her nerves were stretched to breaking point, she burst out laughing. She laughed until her eyes watered while Angelo stared at her, frowning with incomprehension.
“I would have been overjoyed to have had parents who were accountants or teachers,” she finally said. “And I’m not surprised that Mandy made that story up.” She felt a sudden burst of affection for the friend she had once had. “We used to long for normal parents.”
Now it was Angelo’s turn to be confused. He stilled as he sought to unravel the direction of her conversation, although he was half-distracted by the lingering smile on her face. “What are you talking about?”
“What did Mandy tell you about her parents?” Rosie asked curiously and Angelo’s frown deepened. When had he lost control of the situation?
“There was nothing to tell,” he said curtly. “She had none. She was raised by her grandmother who died a year before she moved to London. Where are you going with this?”
“I’m not the one who raised the topic,” Rosie pointed out.
“Are you telling me that Amanda lied about her background? About yours?”
“I was raised by my father who was an alcoholic, Angelo, and I loved him. A lot. Even though he had a problem with his drinking. Even though he never came to a single parents’ meeting or any sports event at school. Actually, even though he wasn’t that bothered whether I went to school or not. Just for the record, I never played truant.”
Angelo felt white-hot fury race through his bloodstream but he contained it. “So not only were you an opportunist,” he gritted, “But you were also an out and out liar.”
“I never lied!” But she hadn’t been truthful either. She had lied by omission. Had she subconsciously worked out that Angelo would have discarded her like yesterday’s garbage if he had known about her background? She had laughed when Amanda had warned her against telling him the truth about them, but had she secretly taken it on board?
“I can’t believe I was conned by the pair of you. Are you going to tell me next that my dearly beloved late wife has a sprawling family tucked away somewhere?”